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LITTLE CLASSICS 

Edited by Arthur D. Hall 


CHARLES I|EADE 

SELECTIONS FROM 

“ Peg Woffington,” 
tl ll Is Never Too Late To Mend,” 
a Griffith Gaunt,” 

“ Very Hard Cash” 

<l Christie Johnstone,” 

“ Put Yourself In His Place,” 
and 

l( The Cloister and the Hearth.” 



NEW YORK AND LONDON 

STREET AND SMITH, PUBLISHERS 


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TH6 LIBRARY Of 

CONGRESS, 

Tl^o CoPfta Received 

S£P. U 1902 

- CoPVqVQHT ENTRY 

cn , ass ^ XXo. No. 

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COPY B, 


Copyright, 1902 
By STREET & SMITH 

Little Classics 


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CONTENTS. 


T _ 

PAGE 

Introduction, ix 

Peg Woffington's Triumph, 3 

Jailers and Prisoners, . . . - 45 

The Courtship of Kate Peyton, . . 89 

The Incarceration of Alfred Hardie, 109 
The Rival Picnics, . . . .135 

The Forge in the Church, . . .159 

A Good Fight, 187 




introduction. 






« 



Introduction. 


There was a time, and not so very long ago 
either, when the name of Charles Reade was 
one to conjure with. Everything that ema- 
nated from his pen was eagerly received and 
devoured with avidity by all sorts and com 
ditions of men and women. It is strange 
that his novels are not more widely read by 
the present generation, for they are to-day 
as timely, as interesting and as thrilling as 
they ever were. 

As a story-teller, pure and simple. Reade 
has but few equals. His plots are strong and 
original, conceived and wrought out with 
equal cleverness. His characters are forcibly 
and truthfully depicted and admirably dif- 
ferentiated. He was a master at selecting 
just the right words to express his mean- 
ing, and his stories move on to just the 
right climaxes, with a dash and vigor that are 
irresistibly fascinating. Through all, the 
unique personality of the man himself ap- 
pears, but rarely obtrusively. 

Charles Reade was graduated at Oxford 
and was afterward admitted to the bar. It 
was comparatively late in life that he began 
his career as an author. He showed at once 
that he had devoted himself to an exhaustive 


IX 


Introduction. 


study of life and literature. He began his 
literary work as a dramatist, and this had a 
strong influence on all his later productions. 
His novels are essentially dramatic, and he 
.always had a keen eye for stage effect in 
characters, situations and dialogue. Indeed, 
it was his expressed wish that the word 
“dramatist” should stand first in the de- 
scription of his occupations upon his tomb- 
stone. 

His first ventures as a novelist consisted 
of two comparatively short stories : “Peg 
Woffington” and “Christie Johnstone” ; the 
former a close, charming and brilliantly 
witty picture of life and character behind 
the scenes ; and the latter an admirable and 
skillful study of Scotch fisher folk. Both are 
“gems of purest ray serene,” cut and polished 
by a master of his craft. The selections from 
these two stories in this little volume will, 
we think, prove the truth of this statement. 
Then followed the first of what have been 
termed “novels with a purpose,” of which 
Reade afterward wrote several. This first 
one was “It Is Never Too Late to Mend,” 
written for the purpose of reforming prison 
discipline. It was the fruit of a most volu- 
minous and exhaustive delving into blue 
books and newspapers, and of personal in- 
quiries. The extract given here affords an 
excellent example of the abuses which Reade 
desired to rectify. The statement has been 


x 


Introduction. 


trade, and it is probably a fact, that “It Is 
Never Too Late to Mend” did as much to 
ameliorate the condition of prisoners in Eng- 
land , as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” effected for 
slavery in America. The truth of some of 
his statements was challenged, and it was 
here that the author first showed himself as 
a great controversalist, a reputation which 
he sustained with telling effect in many sub- 
sequent disputes. In this case, he vigorously 
defended himself and completely and tri- 
umphantly routed his critics. From this 
time until the day of his death, some thirty 
years, he maintained his position in the front 
rank of contemporary novelists. 

Stories from his pen were issued in rapid 
succession. It would take too much space 
to give a list of them here, and we will con- 
tent ourselves with a brief mention of those 
from which we have taken excerpts. “Very 
Hard Cash” and “Put Yourself in His Place” 
are both purpose novels, in one of which the 
author in powerful scenes called attention 
to the abuses of private lunatic asylums, and 
in the other he took as his subject the tyr- 
anny and outrages of trades-unions. It 
must not be supposed that these novels are 
limited to a development of theories and the 
castigation of wrong-doers ; on the contrary, 
the interest of the stories is profound and 
thrilling. “Griffith Gaunt” has a most exciting 
and complicated plot, and is an elaborate 


xi 


Introduction. 


study of character, as well. There are many 
scenes of great beauty and power in this de- 
lightful novel. “The Cloister and the 
Hearth,” by most critics considered Reade’s 
masterpiece, is a radical departure from his 
usual methods. It is a picture of medieval 
times, painted in vivid colors, with a wealth 
of detail, and with extraordinary historical 
accuracy. 

There are few writers, male or female, who 
had a keener insight into the character of 
woman, her virtues and her frailties, than 
had Charles Reade. His women are not pup- 
pets, moving mechanically on wires ; they are 
like real people; they live, breathe and have 
their being. Moreover, they are not all cast 
in the same mold ; each has her own distinct 
individuality. This can easily be seen by 
comparing Peg Woffington, Kate Peyton, 
Christie Johnstone and Grace Carden, who 
figure in the passages we have selected. They 
are as different as different can be, and yet 
they are all lovable, from their weaknesses 
as well as their strength. 

No author has ever taken more pains to 
have his incidents and statements accurate 
(in many instances they were based upon 
actual occurrences) than did Charles Reade. 
He left behind him an enormous mass of ma- 
terial, which he gathered together day by day, 
year by year, from all sorts of sources, news- 
papers, books of travel, blue books, reports of 
xii 


Introduction. 


commissions of inquiry, ancl frpm miscellane- 
ous reading and personal observation. 

In character, Charles Reade was a peculiar 
mixture. He could be genial and peppery by 
turns, as the spirit moved. He was sympa- 
thetic and* charitable, both in word, deed and 
purse, and yet, when he thought he had rea- 
son, he would be an implacable enemy. He 
was extraordinarily frank and open, and, al- 
though he was combative to a degree, he 
always fought fairly and squarely. There 
was nothing underhanded about him. His 
satire was biting, but almost never venomous. 
He delighted to feel and announce, with al- 
most childish candour, his superiority to 
others. His egotism was unbounded, but 
somehow we can forgive conceit, when it has 
a foundation to build upon. 

In conclusion, we desire to state that there 
was such a wealth of material to draw from 
in Reade’s works, it was more or less difficult 
to make selections, but we think that the ex- 
tracts given are not only interesting in them- 
selves, but tend to show the scope and variety 
of the author’s powers. 

Arthur D. Hall. 


xm 












Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 


PEG WOFFINGTON. CHAPTERS I. AND II. 

Mr. Vane was a wealthy gentleman from 
Shropshire, whom business had called to Lon- 
don four months ago, and now pleasure de- 
tained. Business still occupied the letters he 
sent now and then to his native county ; but 
it had ceased to occupy the writer. He was 
a man of learning and taste, as^ times went; 
and his love of the Arts had taken him some 
time before ohr tale to the theatres, then the 
resort of all who pretended to taste; and it 
was thus he had become fascinated by Mrs. 
Woffington, a lady of great beauty, and a 
comedian high in favor with the town. 

The first night he saw her was an epoch 
in the history of this gentleman’s mind. He 
had learning and refinement, and he had not 
great practical experience, and such men are 
most open to impression from the stage. He 
saw a being, all grace and bright nature, 
move like a goddess among the stiff puppets 
of the scene ; her glee and her pathos were 
equally catching, she held a golden key at 
which all the doors of the heart flew open. 
3 


Charles Reade. 


Her face, too, was as full of goodness as in- 
telligence — it was like no other face; the 
heart bounded to meet it. 

He rented a box at her theatre. He was 
there every night before the curtain drew up ; 
and, I am sorry to say, he at last took half 
a dislike to Sunday — Sunday “which knits 
up the ravell’d sleave of care, ,, Sunday “tired 
nature’s sweet restorer,” because on Sunday 
there was no Peg Woffington. At first he 
regarded her as a being of another sphere, 
an incarnation of poetry and art; but by de- 
grees his secret aspirations became bolder. 
She was a woman ; there were men who knew 
her; some of them inferior to him in position, 
and, he flattered himself, in mind. He had 
even heard a tale against her character. To 
him her face was its confutation, and he knew 
how loose-tongued is calumny; but, still ! 

At last one day he sent her a letter, un- 
signed. This letter expressed his admiration 
of her talent in warm but respectful terms; 
the writer told her it had become necessary 
to his heart to return her in some way his 
thanks for the land of enchantment to which 
she had introduced him. Soon after this, 
choice flowers found their way to her dress- 
ing room every night, and now and then 
verses and precious stones mingled with her 
roses and eglantine. And O, how he watched 
the great actress’s eye all the night; how he 
tried to discover whether she looked oftener 

4 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

towards his box than the corresponding box 
on the other side of the house ! 

Did she notice him, or did she not? What 
a point gained, if she was conscious of his 
nightly attendance; she would feel he was a 
friend, not a mere auditor. He was jealous 
of the pit, on whom Mrs. Woffington lavished 
her smiles without measure. 

At last, one day he sent her a wreath of 
flowers, and implored her, if any word he 
had said to her had pleased or interested her, 
to wear this wreath that night. After he had 
done this he trembled ; he had courted a de- 
cision, when, perhaps, his safety lay in pa- 
tience and time. She made her entree; he 
turned cold as she glided into sight from the 
prompter’s side ; he raised his eyes slowly 
and fearfully from her feet to her head; her 
head was bare, wreathed only by its own rich 
glossy honors. “Fool !” thought he, “to 
think she would hang frivolities upon that 
glorious head for me.” Yet his disappoint- 
ment told him he had really hoped it ; he 
would not have sat out the play but for a 
leaden incapacity of motion that seized him. 

The curtain drew up for the fifth act, and — 
could he believe his eyes? — Mrs. Woffington 
stood upon the stage with his wreath upon 
her graceful head. She took away his breath. 
She spoke the epilogue, and, as the curtain 
fell, she lifted her eyes, he thought, to his 
box, and made him a distinct, queen-like 
5 


Charles Reade. 


courtsey; his heart fluttered to his mouth, 
and he walked home on wings and tiptoe. 

In short — 

Mrs. Woffington, as an actress, justified 
a portion of this enthusiasm ; she was one 
of the truest artists of her day; a fine lady 
in her hands was a lady, with the genteel 
affectation of a gentlewoman, not a harlot’s 
affectation, which is simply and without ex- 
aggeration what the stage commonly gives 
us for a fine lady ; an old woman in her 
hands was a thorough woman, thoroughly old, 
not a cackling young person of epicene gen- 
der. She played Sir Harry Wildair like a 
man, which is how he ought to be played (or, 
which is better still, not at all), so that Gar- 
rick acknowledged her as a male rival, and 
abandoned the part he no longer monopolized. 

Now it very, very rarely happens that a 
woman of her age is high enough in art and 
knowledge to do these things. In players, 
vanity cripples art at every step. The young 
actress who is not a Woffington aims to dis- 
play herself by means of her part, which is 
vanity; not to raise her part by sinking her- 
self in it, which is art. It has been my 

misfortune to see , and , and , 

and , et ceteras, play the man; Nature, 

forgive them, if you can, for art never will ; 
they never reached any idea more manly than 
a steady resolve to exhibit the points of a 
woman with greater ferocity than they could 

6 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

in a gown. But consider, ladies, a man is 
not the meanest of the brute creation, so how 
:an he be an unwomanly female? This sort 
of actress aims not to give her author’s cre- 
ation to the public, but to trot out the person 
instead of the creation, and shows sots what 
a calf it has — and is. 

Vanity, vanity ! all is vanity ! Mesdames 
les Charlatanes. 

Margaret Woffington was of another mold; 
she played the ladies of high comedy with 
grace, distinction, and delicacy. But in Sir 
Harry Wildair she parted with a woman’s 
mincing foot and tongue, and played the man 
in a style large, spirited, and Stance. As Mrs. 
Day (committee) she painted wrinkles on 
her lovely face so honestly that she was taken 
for threescore, and she carried out the design 
with voice and person, and did a vulgar old 
woman to the life. She disfigured her own 
beauties to show the beauty of her art; in a 
word, she was an artist ! It does not follow 
she was the greatest artist that ever breathed ; 
far from it. Mr. Vane was carried to this 
notion by passion and ignorance. 

On the evening of our tale he was at his 
post patiently sitting out one of those san- 
guinary discourses our rude forefathers 
thought were tragic plays. Scdct ceternum- 
que Sedcbit Infelix Theseus, because Mrs. 
Woffington is to speak the epilogue. 

These epilogues were curiosities of the 

7 


Charles Reade. 


human mind; they whom, just to ourselves 
and them , we call our forbears, had an idea 
their blood and bombast were not ridiculous 
enough in themselves, so when the curtain 
had fallen on the debris of the dramatis 
personce, and of common sense, they sent 
on an actress to turn all the sentiment so 
laboriously acquired into a jest. 

To insist that nothing good or beautiful 
shall be carried safe from a play out into 
the street was the bigotry of English horse- 
play. Was a Lucretia the heroine of the 
tragedy, she was careful in the epilogue to 
speak like Messalina. Did* a king’s mistress 
come to hunger and repentance, she disin- 
fected all the petit es maitresses in the house 
of the moral, by assuring them that sin is 
a joke, repentance a greater, and that she 
individually was ready for either if they 
would but cry, laugh and pay. Then the 
audience used to laugh, and if they did not, 
lo ! the manager, actor and author of heroic 
tragedy were exceeding sorrowful. 

Whilst sitting attendance on the epilogue, 
Mr. Vane had nothing to distract him from 
the .congregation but a sanguinary sermon in 
five heads, so his eyes roved over the pews, 
and presently he became aware of a familiar 
face watching him closely. The gentleman 
to whom it belonged finding himself recog- 
nized, left his seat, and a minute later Sir 
Charles Pomander entered Mr. Vane’s box. 

8 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

This Sir Charles Pomander was a gentle- 
man of vice; pleasure he called it. Mr. Vane 
had made his acquaintance two years ago in 
Shropshire. Sir Charles, who husbanded 
everything except his soul, had turned him- 
self out to grass for a month. His object 
was, by roast mutton, bread with some little 
flour in it, air, water, temperance, chastity, 
and peace, to be enabled to take a deeper 
plunge into impurities of food and morals. 

A few nights ago, unseen by Mr. Vane, he 
had observed him in the theatre. An ordi- 
nary man would have gone at once and shaken 
hands with him, but this was not an ordi- 
nary man, this was a diplomatist. First of 
all, he said to himself : “What is this man 
doing here?” Then he soon discovered this 
man must, be in love with some actress ; then 
it became his business to know who she was ; 
this too soon betrayed itself. Then it became 
more than ever Sir Charles’s business to 
know whether Mrs. Woffington returned the 
sentiment; and here his penetration was at 
fault, for the moment ; he determined, how- 
ever, to discover. 

Mr. Vane then received his friend, all un- 
suspicious how that friend had been skinning 
him with his eyes for some time past. After 
the usual compliments had passed between two 
gentlemen who had been hand and glove for 
a month and forgotten each other’s existence 
9 


Charles Reade. 


for two years, Sir Charles, still keeping in 
view his design, said : 

“Let us go upon the stage/’ The fourth 
act had just concluded. 

“Go upon the stage!” said Mr. Vane. 
“What, where she — I mean among the actors ?” 

“Yes: come into the green-room. There 
are one or two people of reputation there; I 
will introduce you to them, if you please.” 

“Go upon the stage !” why, if it had been 
proposed to him to go to heaven he would not 
have been more astonished. He was too as- 
tonished at first to realize the full beauty of 
the arrangement, by means of which he might 
be within a yard of Mrs. Woffington, might 
feel her dress rustle past him, might speak 
to her, might drink her voice fresh from her 
lips almost before it mingled with meaner air. 
Silence gives consent, and Mr. Vane, though 
he thought a great deal, said nothing ; so 
Pomander rose, and they left the boxes to- 
gether. He led the way to the stage door, 
which was opened obsequiously to him; they 
then passed through a dismal passage, and 
suddenly emerged upon that scene of enchant- 
ment, the stage, — a dirty platform encumbered 
on all sides with piles of scenery in flats. 
They threaded their way through rusty velvet 
actors and fustian carpenters, and entered 
the green-room. At the door of this magic 
chamber Vane trembled and half wished he 
could retire. They entered; his apprehen 
10 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

sion gave way to disappointment, she was not 
there. Collecting himself, he was presently 
introduced to a smart, jaunty, and, to do him 
justice, distingue old beau. This was Colley 
Cibber, Esq., poet laureate, and retired actor 
and dramatist, a gentleman who is entitled to 
a word or two. 

This Cibber was the only actor since Shakes- 
peare’s time who had both acted and written 
well. Pope’s personal resentment misleads the 
reader of English poetry as to Cibber’s real 
place among the wits of the day. 

The man’s talent was dramatic, not didactic, 
or epic, or pastoral. Pope was not so deep in 
the drama as in other matters, and Cibber was 
one of its luminaries; he wrote spme of the 
best comedies of his day. He also succeeded 
where Dryden, for lack of true dramatic taste, 
failed. He tampered successfully with Shakes- 
peare. Colley Cibber’s version of “Richard 
the Third” is impudent and slightly larcenic, 
but it is marvelously effective. It has stood 
a century, and probably will stand forever ; 
and the most admired passages in what liter- 
ary humbugs who pretend they know Shakes- 
peare by the closet, not the stage, accept as 
Shakespeare’s “Richard,” are Cibber’s. 

Mr. Cibber was now in private life, a mild 
edition of his own Lord Foppington ; he had 
none of the snob-fop as represented on our 
conventional stage ; nobody ever had, and 
lived. He was in tolerably good taste ; but he 
11 


Charles Reade. 


went ever gold-laced, highly powdered, scented, 
and diamonded, dispensing graceful bows, 
praises of whoever had the good luck to be 
dead, and satire of all who were here to en- 
joy it. 

Mr. Vane, to whom the drama had now be- 
come the golden branch of letters, looked with 
some awe on this veteran, for he had seen 
many Woffingtons. He fell soon upon the 
subject nearest his heart. He asked Mr. 
Cibber what he thought of Mrs. Woffington. 
The old gentleman thought well of the young 
lady’s talent, especially her comedy ; in trag- 
edy, said he, she imitates Mademoiselle 
Dumesnil, of the Theatre Franqais, and con- 
founds the stage rhetorician with the actress. 
The next question was not so fortunate. 
“Did you ever see so great and true an act- 
ress upon the whole?” 

Mr. Cibber opened his eyes, a slight flush 
came into his wash-leather face, and he re- 
plied : “I have not only seen many equal, many 
superior to her, but I have seen some half 
dozen who would have eaten her up and spit 
her out again, and not known they had done 
anything out of the way.” 

Here Pomander soothed the veteran’s dud- 
geon by explaining in dulcet tones that his 

friend was not long from Shropshire, and 

The critic interrupted him, and bade him not 
dilute the excuse. 

Now Mr. Vane had as much to say as either 

12 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

of them, but he had not the habit, which 
dramatic folks have, of carrying his whole 
bank in his cheek-pocket, so they quenched him 
for two minutes. But lovers are not silenced, 
he soon returned to the attack ; he dwelt on the 
grace, the ease, the freshness, the intelligence, 
the universal beauty of Mrs. Woffington. 
Pomander sneered, to draw him out. Cibber 
smiled, with good-natured superiority. This 
nettled the young gentleman, he fired up, his 
handsome countenance glowed, he turned 
Demosthenes for her he loved. One advan- 
tage he had over both Cibber and Pomander, a 
fair stock of classical learning; on this he now 
drew. 

“Other actors and actresses , 44 said he, “are 
monotonous in voice, monotonous in action, 
but Mrs. Woffington’s delivery has the com- 
pass and variety of nature, and her movements 
are free from the stale uniformity that dis- 
tinguishes artifice from art. The others seem 
to me to have but two dreams of grace, a sort 
of crawling on stilts is their motion, and an 
angular stiffness their repose.” He then cited 
the most famous statues of antiquity, and 
quoted situations in plays where, by her fine 
dramatic instinct, Mrs. Woffington, he said, 
threw her person into postures similar to these, 
and of equal beauty; “not that she strikes at- 
titudes like the rest, but she melts from one 
beautiful statue into another; and, if sculptors 
could gather from her immortal graces, paint- 
13 


Charles Reade. 


ers too might take from her face the beauties 
that belong of right to passion and thought, 
and orators might revive their withered art, 
and learn from those golden lips the music of 
old Athens, that quelled tempestuous mobs, 
and princes drank with victory.” 

Much as this was, he w as going to say more, 
ever so much more, but he became conscious 
of a singular sort of grin upon every face ; this 
grin made him turn rapidly round to look for 
its cause. It explained itself at once ; at his 
very elbow was a lady, whom his heart recog- 
nized, though her back was turned to him. 
She was dressed in a rich silk gown, pearl 
white, with flowers and sprigs embroidered ; 
her beautiful white neck and arms were bare. 
She was sweeping up the room with the 
epilogue in her hand, learning it off by heart ; 
at the other end of the room she turned, and 
now she shone full upon him. 

It certainly was a dazzling creature : she had 
a head of beautiful form, perched like a bird 
upon a throat massive yet shapely and smooth 
as a column of alabaster, a symmetrical brow, 
black eyes full of fire and tenderness, a deli- 
cious mouth, with a hundred varying expres- 
sions, and that marvelous faculty of giving 
beauty alike to love or scorn, a sneer or a 
smile. But she had one feature more remark- 
able than all, her eyebrows, — the actor’s fea- 
ture; they were jet black, strongly marked, 
and in repose were arched like a rainbow ; but 

14 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

it was their extraordinary flexibility which 
made other faces upon the stage look sleepy 
beside Margaret Woffington’s. In person she 
was considerably above the middle height, and 
so finely formed that one could not determine 
the exact character of her figure. At one 
time it seemed all stateliness, at another time 
elegance personified, and flowing voluptuous- 
ness at another. She was Juno, Psyche, Plebe, 
by turns, and for aught we know at will. 

It must be confessed that a sort of halo of 
personal grandeur surrounds a great actress. 
A scene is set; half a dozen nobodies are there 
lost in it, because they are and seem lumps of 
nothing. The great artist steps upon that 
scene, and how she fills it in a moment ! Mind 
and majesty wait upon her in the air; her 
person is lost in the greatness of her personal 
presence ; she dilates with thought , and a 
stupid giantess looks a dwarf beside her. 

No wonder then that Mr. Vane felt over- 
powered by this torch in a closet. To vary 
the metaphor, it seemed to him, as she swept 
up and down, as if the green-room was a shell, 
and this glorious creature must burst it and 
be free. Meantime, the others saw a pretty 
a.ctress studying her business ; and Cibber saw 
a dramatic schoolgirl learning what he pre- 
sumed to be a very silly set of words. Sir C. 
Pomander’s eye had been on her the moment 
she entered, and he watched keenly the effect 
of Vane’s eloquent eulogy; but apparently the 
15 


Charles Reade. 


actress was too deep in her epilogue for any 
thing else. She came in, saying, “Mum, mum, 
mum,” over her task, and she went on doing 
so. The experienced Mr. Cibber, who had 
divined Vane in an instant, drew him into a 
corner, and complimented him on his well- 
timed eulogy. 

“You acted that mighty well, sir,” said he. 
“Stop my vitals ! if I did not think you were 
in earnest, till I saw the jade had slipped in 
among us. It told, sir, — it told.” 

Up fired Vane. “What do you mean, sir?” 
said he. “Do you suppose my admiration of 
that lady is feigned?” 

“No need to speak so loud, sir,” replied the 
old gentleman ; “she hears you. These hussies 
have ears like hawks.” 

He then dispensed a private wink and a 
public bow; with which he strolled away from 
Mr. Vane, and walked feebly and jauntily up 
the room, whistling “Fair Hebe” ; fixing his 
eye upon the past, and somewhat ostentatiously 
overlooking the existence of the present com- 
pany. 

There is no great harm in an old gentleman 
whistling, but there are two ways of doing 
it; and as this old beau did it, it seemed not 
unlike a small cock-a-doodle-doo of general 
defiance; and the denizens of the green-room, 
swelled now to a considerable number by the 
addition of all the ladies and gentlemen who 
had been killed in the fourth act, or whom the 
16 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

butterv-fingered author could not keep in hand 
until the fall of the curtain, felt it as such ; 
and so they were not sorry when Mrs. Woffing- 
ton, looking up from her epilogue, cast a glance 
upon the old beau, waited for him, and walked 
parallel with him on the other side the room, 
giving an absurdly exact imitation of his car- 
riage and deportment. To make this more 
striking, she pulled out of her pocket, after a 
mock search, a huge paste ring, gazed on it 
with a ludicrous affectation of simple wonder, 
stuck it, like Cibber’s diamond, on her little 
finger, and, pursing up her mouth, proceeded 
to whistle a quick movement, 

“V/hich, by some devilish cantrip sleight ” 

played round the old beau's slow movement, 
without being at variance with it. As for the 
character of this ladylike performance, it was 
clear, brilliant, and loud as a blacksmith. 

The folk laughed; Vane was shocked. “She 
profanes herself by whistling,” thought he. 
Mr. Cibber was confounded. He appeared to 
have no idea whence came this sparkling 
adagio. He looked round, placed his hands 
to his ears, and left off whistling. So did his 
musical accomplice. 

“Gentlemen,” said Cibber, with pathetic 
gravity, “the wind howls most dismally this 
evening ! I took it for a drunken shoemaker !” 

At this there was a roar of laughter, except 

17 


Charles Reade. 


from Mr. Vane. Peg Woffington laughed as 
merrily as the others, and showed a set of teeth 
that were really dazzling; but all in one mo- 
ment, without the preliminaries an ordinary 
countenance requires, this laughing Venus 
pulled a face gloomy beyond conception. 
Down came her black brows straight as a line, 
and she cast a look of bitter reproach on all 
present; resuming her study, as who should 
say, “Are ye not ashamed to divert a poor girl 
from her epilogue?” And then she went on, 
“Mum ! mum ! mum !” casting off ever and 
anon resentful glances ; and this made the fools 
laugh again. 

The laureate was now respectfully ad- 
dressed by one of his admirers, James Quin, 
the Falstaff of the day, and the rival at this 
time of Garrick in tragic characters, though 
the general opinion was, that he could not 
long maintain a standing against the younger 
genius and his rising school of art. 

Off the stage, James Quin was a character; 
his eccentricities were three, — a humorist, a 
glutton, and an honest man ; traits that often 
caused astonishment and ridicule, especially 
the last. 

“May we not hope for something from Mr. 
Cibber’s pen after so long a silence?” 

“No,” was the considerate reply. “Who 
have ye got to play it?” 

“Plenty,” said Quin; “there’s ycur humble 
servant, there’s ” 


18 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

“Humility at the head of the list,” cried she 
of the epilogue. “Mum ! mum ! mum !” 

Vane thought this so sharp. 

“Garrick, Barry, Macklin, Kitty Clive here 
at my side ; Mrs. Cibber, the best tragic actress 
I ever saw; and Woffington, who is as good a 
comedian as you ever saw, sir;” and Quin 
turned as red as fire. 

“Keep your temper, Jemmy,” said Mrs. 
Woffington, with a severe accent. “Mum ! 
mum ! mum !” 

“You misunderstand my question,” replied 
Cibber, calmly; “I know your dramatis per- 
sona but where the devil are your actors? ’ 

Here was a blow. 

“The public,” said Quin, in some agitation, 
“would snore, if we acted as they did in your 
time.” 

“How do von know that, sir?” was the 
supercilious rejoinder; “ you never tried!” 

Mr. Quin was silenced. Peg Woffington 
looked off her epilogue. 

“Bad as we are,” said she, coolly, “we might 
be worse.” 

Mr. Cibber turned round, slightly raised his 
eyebrows. 

“Indeed!” said he. “Madame!” added he, 
with a courteous smile; “will you be kind 
enough to explain to me how you could be 
worse !” 

“If, like a crab, we could go backwards !” 

19 


Charles Reade. 


At this the auditors tittered ; and Mr. Cib- 
ber had recourse to his spy-glass. 

This gentleman was satirical or insolent, as 
the case might demand, in three degrees, of 
which the snuff-box was the comparative, and 
the spy-glass the superlative. He had learned 
this on the stage ; in annihilating Quin he had 
just used the snuff weapon, and now he drew 
his spy-glass upon poor Peggy. 

“Whom have we here ?” said he : then he 
looked with his spy-glass to see ; “oh ! the little 
Irish orange girl !” 

“Whose basket outweighed Colley Cibber’s 
salary for the first twenty years of his dra- 
matic career,” was the delicate reply to the 
above delicate remark. It staggered him for a 
moment ; however, he affected a most puzzled 
air, then gradually allowed a light to steal into 
his features. 

“Eh ! ah ! oh ! how stupid I am ; I under- 
stand ; you sold something besides oranges!” 

“Oh!” said Mr. Vane, and colored up to the 
temples, and cast a look on Cibber, as much 
as to say, “If you were not seventy-three !” 

His ejaculation was something so different 
from any tone any other person there present 
could have uttered, that the actress’s eye dwelt 
on him for a single moment, and in that mo- 
ment he felt himself looked through and 
through. 

“I sold the young fops a bargain, you mean,” 
was her calm reply ; “and now I am come down 

30 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

to the old ones. A truce, Mr. Cibber, what do 
you understand by an actor? Tell me; for I 
am foolish enough to respect your opinion on 
these matters !” 

‘‘An actor, young lady,” said he, gravely, 
“is an artist who has gone deep enough in his 
art to make dunces, critics, and greenhorns 
take it for nature ; moreover, he really person- 
ates; which your mere man of the stage never 
does. He has learned the true art of self- 
multiplication. He drops Betterton, Booth, 
Wilkes, or, ahem ” 

“Cibber,” inserted Sir Charles Pomander. 
Cibber bowed. 

“In his dressing-room, and comes out young 
or old, a fop, a valet, a lover, or a hero, with 
voice, mien, and every gesture to match. A 
grain less than this may be good speaking, 
fine preaching, deep grunting, high ranting, 
eloquent reciting; but I’ll be hanged if it is 
acting !” 

“Then Colley Cibber never acted,” whis- 
pered Quin to Mrs. Clive. 

“Then Margaret Woffington is an actress,” 
said M. W. ; “the fine ladies take my Lady 
Betty for their sister. In Mrs. Day ; I pass 
for a woman of seventy; and in Sir Harry 
Wildair I have been taken for a man. I would 
have told you that before, but I didn’t know 
it was to my credit,” said she, slyly, “till Mr. 
Cibber laid down the law.” 

“Proof !” said Cibber. 

21 


Charles Reade. 


“A warm letter from one lady, diamond 
buckles from another, and an offer of hand 
and fortune from a third; rien que cela ” 

Mr. Cibber conveyed behind her back a 
look of absolute incredulity; she divined it. 

“I will not show you the letters,” continued 
she, “because Sir Harry, though a rake, was 
a gentleman ; but here are the buckles” ; and 
she fished them out of her pocket, capacious 
of such things. The buckles were gravely in- 
spected, they made more than one eye water, 
they were undeniable. 

“Well, let us see what we can do for her,” 
said the laureate. He tapped his box and 
without a moment’s hesitation produced the 
most execrable distich in the language : 

“Now who is like Peggy, with talent at will, 

A maid loved her Harry, for want of a Bill?” 

“Well, child,” continued he, after the ap- 
plause which follows extemporary verses had 
subsided, “take me in. Play something to 
make me lose sight of saucy Peg Woffington, 
and I'll give the world five acts more before 
the curtain falls on Colley Cibber.” 

“If you could be deceived,” put in Mr. Vane, 
somewhat timidly; “I think there is no disguise 
through which grace and beauty such as Mrs. 
Woffington’s would not shine, to my eyes.” 

“That is to praise my person at the expense 
of my wit, sir, is it not?” was her reply. 

22 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

This was the first word she had ever ad- 
dressed to him. The tones appeared so sweet 
to him, that he could not find anything to reply 
for listening to them; and Cibber resumed: 

“Meantime, I will show you a real actress ; 
she is coming here to-night to meet me. Did 
ever you children hear of Ann Bracegirdle ?” 

“Bracegirdle !” said Mrs. Clive; “why, she 
has been dead this thirty years; at least 1 
thought so.” 

“Dead to the stage. There is more heat in 
her ashes than in your fire, Kate Clive ! Ah ! 
here comes her messenger,” continued he, as 
an ancient man appeared with a letter in his 
hand. This letter Mrs. Woffington snatched 
and read, and at the same instant in bounced 
the call-boy. “Epilogue called,” said this 
urchin, in the tone of command which 
these small fry of Parnassus adopt ; and, obedi- 
ent to his high behest, Mrs. Woffington moved 
to the door, with the Bracegirdle missive in 
her hand, but not before she had delivered its 
general contents : “The great actress will be 
here in a few minutes,” said she, and she 
glided swiftly out of the room. 

People whose mind or manners possess any 
feature, and are not as devoid of all eccen- 
tricity as half-pounds of butter bought of 
metropolitan grocers, are recommended not to 
leave a roomful of their acquaintances until 
the last but one, Yes, they should always be 
penultimate. Perhaps Mrs. Woffington knew 
23 


Charles Reade. 


this; but epilogues are stubborn things, and 
call-boys undeniable. 

“Did you ever hear a woman whistle be- 
fore?" 

“Never; but I saw one sit astride on an ass 
in Germany !’’ 

“The saddle was not on her husband, I hope, 
madam ?” 

“No, sir; the husband walked by his kins- 
folk’s side, and made the best of a bad bargain, 
as Peggy’s husband will have to.’’ 

“Wait till some one ventures on the gay 
Lotharia , — illi ccs triplex; that means he must 
have triple brass, Kitty.’’ 

“I deny that, sir; since his wife will al- 
ways have enough for both." 

“I have not observed the lady’s brass," said 
Vane, trembling with passion; “but I observed 
her talent, and I noticed that whoever attacks 
her to her face comes badly off." 

“Well said, sir," answered Quin; “and I 
wish Kitty here would tell us why she hates 
Mrs. Woffington, the best-natured woman in 
the theatre?" 

“I don’t hate her, I don’t trouble my head 
about her." 

“Yes, you hate her; for you never miss 
a cut at her, never !’’ 

“Do you hate a haunch of venison, Quin?" 
said the lady. 

“No, you little unnatural monster," replied 
Quin. 


24 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

“For all that, you never miss a cut at one, 
so hold your tongue !” 

“Le beau raisonnement !” said Mi. Cibber. 
“James Quin, don’t interfere with nature’s 
laws ; let our ladies hate one another, it eases 
their minds ; try to make them Christians, and 
you will not convert their tempers, but spoil 
your own. Peggy there hates George Anne 
Bellamy, because she has gaudy silk dresses 
from Paris, by paying for them, as she could, 
if not too stingy. Kitty here hates Peggy be- 
cause Rich has breeched her, whereas Kitty, 
who now sets up for a prude, wanted to put 
delicacy off and small-clothes on in Peg’s 
stead, that is where the Kate and Peg shoe 
pinches, near the femoral artery, James. 

“Shrimps have the souls of shrimps,” re- 
sumed this censor castigatorque minorum. 
“Listen to me, and learn that really great 
actors are great in soul, and do not blubber 
like a great schoolgirl because Anne Bellamy 
has two yellow silk dresses from Paris, as I 
saw Woffington blubber in this room, and 
would not be comforted; not fume like Kitty 
Clive, because Woffington has a pair of 
breeches and a little boy’s rapier to go a play- 
ing at acting with. When I was young two 
giantesses fought for empire upon this very 
stage, where now dwarfs crack and bounce 
like parched peas. They played Roxana and 
Statira in the ‘Rival Queens.’ Rival queens 
of art themselves, they put out all their 
25 


Charles Reade. 


strength. In the middle of the last act the 
town gave judgment in favor of Statira. What 
did Roxana ? Did she spill grease on Statira’s 
robe, as Peg Woffington would? or stab her, 
as I believe Kitty here capable of doing? No ! 
Statira was never so tenderly killed as that 
night: she owned this to me. Roxana bade 
the theatre farewell that night, and wrote 
to Statira thus : I give you word for word : 
'Madam, the best judge we have has decided 
in your favor. I shall never play second on a 
stage where I have been first so long, but 1 
shall often be a spectator, and methinks none 
will appreciate your talent more than I, who 
have felt its weight. My wardrobe, one of 
the best in Europe, is of no use to me; if you 
will honor me by selecting a few of my 
dresses, you will gratify me, and I shall fancy 
I see myself upon the stage to greater ad- 
vantage than before.' ” 

“And what did Statira answer, sir?” said 
Mr. Vane, eagerly. 

“She answered thus : 'Madam, the town has 
often been wrong, and may have been so last 
night, in supposing that I vied successfully 
with your merit; but thus much is certain, — 
and here, madam, I am the best judge, — that 
off the stage you have just conquered me. I 
shall wear with pride any dress you have hon- 
ored, and shall feel inspired to great exertions 
by your presence among our spectators, un- 
less, indeed, the sense of your magnanimity 
26 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

and the recollection of your talent should damp 
me by the dread of losing any portion of your 
good opinion.’ ” 

“What a couple of stiff old things,” said 
Mrs. Clive. 

“Nay, madam, say not so,” cried Vane, 
warmly; “surely, this was the lofty courtesy 
of two great minds not to be overbalanced by 
strife, defeat, or victory.” 

“What were their names, sir?” 

“Statira was the great Mrs. Oldfield. Rox- 
ana you will see here to-night.” 

This caused a sensation. 

Colley’s reminiscences were interrupted by 
loud applause from the theatre; the present 
seldom gives the past a long hearing. 

The old war-horse cocked his ears. 

“It is Woffington speaking the epilogue,” 
said Quin. 

“O, she has got the length of their foot, 
somehow,” said a small actress. 

“And the breadth of their hands, too,” said 
Pomander, waking from a nap. 

“It is the depth of their hearts she has 
sounded,” said Vane. 

In those days, if a metaphor started up, the 
poor thing was coursed up hill and down dale, 
and torn limb from jacket; even in Parliament, 
a trope was sometimes hunted from one ses- 
sion into another. 

“You were asking me about Mrs. Oldfield, 
sir,” resumed Cibber, rather peevishly. “I will 
27 


Charles Reade. 


own to you, I lack words to convey a j ust idea 
of her double and complete supremacy. But 
the comedians of this day are weak-strained 
farceurs compared with her, and her tragic 
tone was thunder set to music. 

“I saw a brigadier-general cry like a child at 
her Indiana ; I have seen her crying with pain 
herself at the wing (for she was always a 
great sufferer), I have seen her then spring 
upon the stage as Lady Townley, and in a mo- 
ment sorrow brightened into joy; the air 
seemed to fill with singing-birds, that chirped 
the pleasures of fashion, love, and youth, in 
notes sparkling like diamonds and stars and 
prisms. She was above criticism, out of its 
scope, as is the blue sky; men went not to 
judge her, they drank her, and gazed at her, 
and were warmed at her, and refreshed by 
her. The fops were awed into silence, and 
with their humbler betters thanked Heaven for 
her, if they thanked it for anything. 

v Tn all the crowded theatre, care and pain 
and poverty were banished from the memory, 
whilst Oldfield’s face spoke, and her tongue 
flashed melodies; the lawyer forgot his quil- 
lets ; the polemic, the mote in his brother’s eye ; 
the old maid, her grudge against the two sexes ; 
the old man, his gray hairs and his lost hours. 
And can it be, that all this which should have 
been immortal, is quite — quite lost, is as 
though it had never been?” he sighed. “Can it 
be that its fame is now sustained by me; who 
28 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

twang with my poor lute, cracked and old, 
these feeble praises of a broken lyre: 

“ 'Whose : wires were golden , and its heavenly 
air 

More tunable than lark to shepherd's ear, 
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds 
appear’?” 

He paused, and his eye looked back over 
many years : then, with a very different tone, 
he added: 

“And that Jack Falstaff there must have seen 
her, now I think on ’t.” 

“Only once, sir,” said Quin, “and I was but 
ten years old.” 

“He saw her once, and he was fen years old ; 
yet he calls Woffington a great comedian, and 
my son The’s wife, with her hatchet face, the 
greatest tragedian he ever saw ! Jemmy, what 
an ass you must be !” 

“Mrs. Cibber always makes me cry, and 
t’other always makes me laugh,” said Quin 
stoutly, “that’s why.” 

Ce beau raisonnement met no answer, but a 
look of sovereign contempt. 

A very trifling incident saved the ladies of 
the British stage from further criticism. 
There were two candles in this room, one on 
each side; the call-boy had entered, and, pok- 
ing about for something, knocked down and 
broke one of these. 

“Awkward imp !” cried a velvet page. 

29 


Charles Reade. 


“I'll go to the Treasury for another, 
ma’am,” said the boy, pertly, and vanished 
with the fractured wax. 

I take advantage of the interruption to open 
Mr. Vane’s mind to the reader. First, he had 
been astonished at the freedom of sarcasm 
these people indulged in without quarrelling; 
next at the non-respect of sex. 

“So sex is not recognized in this commu- 
nity,” thought he. Then the glibness and merit 
of some of their answers surprised and amused 
him. He, like me, had seldom met an imagi- 
native repartee, except in a play or a book. 
“Society’s” repartees were then, as they are 
now, the good old tree in various dresses and 
veils : Tu quoque, tu mentiris , vos damnemini; 
but he was sick and dispirited on the whole ; 
such very bright illusions had been dimmed in 
these few minutes. 

She was brilliant; but her manners, if not 
masculine, were very daring; and yet, when 
she spoke to him, a stranger, how sweet and 
gentle her voice was ! Then it was clear 
nothing but his ignorance could have placed 
her at the summit of her art. 

Still he clung to his enthusiasm for her. 
He drew Pomander aside. “What a simplicity 
there is in Mrs. Woffington!” said he; “the 
rest, male and female, are all so affected; she 
is so fresh and natural. They are all hot- 
house plants; she is a cowslip with the May 
dew on it.” 


30 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

“What you take for simplicity is her re- 
fined art,” replied Sir Charles. 

“No !” said Vane, “I never saw a more in- 
nocent creature !” 

Pomander laughed in his face; this laugh 
disconcerted him more than words ; he spoke 
no more, — he sat pensive. He was sorry he 
had come to this place, where everybody knew 
his goddess; yet nobody admired, nobody 
loved, and, alas! nobody respected her. 

He was roused from his revery by a noise; 
the noise was caused by Cibber falling on Gar- 
rick, whom Pomander had maliciously quoted 
against all the tragedians of Colley Cibber's 
day. 

“I tell you,” cried the veteran, “that this 
Garrick has banished dignity from the stage, 
and given us in exchange what you and he 
take for fire; but it is smoke and vapor. His 
manner is little, like his person, it is all fuss 
and bustle. This is his idea of a tragic scene : 
A little fellow comes bustling in, goes bustling 
about, and runs bustling out.” Here Mr. Cib- 
ber left the room, to give greater effect to his 
description, but presently returned in a 
mighty pother, saying: “‘Give me another 
horse!' Well, where's the horse? don’t you 
see I'm waiting for him? ‘Bind up my 
wounds !' Look sharp now with these wounds. 
‘Have mercy, Heaven !’ but be quick about it, 
for the pit can’t wait for Heaven. Bustle ! 
bustle ! bustle !” 


31 


Charles Reade. 


The old dog was so irresistibly funny, that 
the whole company were obliged to laugh ; but 
in the midst of their merriment Mrs. Woffing- 
ton’s voice was heard at the door. 

“This way, madam.” 

A clear and somewhat shrill voice replied : 
“I know the way better than you, child and 
a stately old lady appeared on the threshold. 

“Bracegirdle,” said Mr. Cibber. 

It may well be supposed that every eye was 
turned on this newcomer, — that Roxana for 
whom Mr. Cibber’s story had prepared a pe- 
culiar interest. She was dressed in a rich 
green velvet gown with gold fringe. Cibber 
remembered it; she had played the “Eastern 
Queen” in it. Heaven forgive all concerned ! 
It was fearfully pinched in at the waist and 
ribs, so as to give the idea of wood inside, not 
woman. 

Her hair and eyebrows were iron-gray, and 
she had lost a front tooth, or she would still 
have been eminently handsome. She was tall 
and straight as a dart, and her noble port be- 
trayed none of the weakness of age, only it was 
to be seen that her hands were a little weak, 
and the gold-headed crutch struck the ground 
rather, sharply, as if it did a little limbs’-duty. 

Such was the lady who marched into the 
middle of the room, with a “How do, Colley?” 
and, looking over the company’s heads as if she 
did not see them, regarded the four walls with 
some interest. Like a cat, she seemed to think 
32 


Peer Woffington's Triumph. 

O <3 I 

more of places than of folk. The page obse- 
quiously offered her a chair. 

“Not so clean as it used to be,” said Mrs. 
Bracegirdle. 

Unfortunately, in making this remark, the 
old lady graciously patted the page’s head for 
offering her the chair; and this action gave, 
with some of the ill-constituted minds that are 
ever on the titter, a ridiculous direction to a 
remark intended, I believe, for the paint and 
wainscots, etc. 

“Nothing is as it used to be,” remarked Mr. 
Cibber. 

“All the better for everything,” said Mrs. 
Clive. 

“We were laughing at this -mighty little 
David, first actor of this mighty little age.” 

Now if Mr. Cibber thought to find in the 
newcomer an ally of the past in its indiscrimi- 
nate attack upon the present, he was much 
mistaken ; for the old actress made onslaught 
on this nonsense at once. 

“Ay, ay,” said she, “and not the first time by 
many hundreds. ’Tis a disease you have. 
Cure yourself, Colley. Davy Garrick pleases 
the public ; and in trifles like acting, that take 
nobody to heaven, to please all the world, is 
to be great. Some pretend to higher aims, but 
none have ’em. You may hide this from young 
fools, mayhap, but not from an old ’oman like 
me. He ! he ! he ! No, no, no, — not from an 
old ’oman like me.” 


33 


Charles Reade. 


She then turned round in her chair, and with 
that sudden, unaccountable snappishness of 
tone to which the brisk old are subject, she 
snarled : “Gie me a pinch of snuff, some of ye, 
do !” 

Tobacco dust was instantly at her disposal. 
She took it with the points of her fingers, 
delicately, and divested the crime of half its 
uncleanness and vulgarity, — more an angel 
could n’t. 

“Monstrous sensible woman, though !” 
whispered Quin to Clive. 

“Hey, sir! what do you say, sir? for I’m a 
little deaf.” (Not very to praise, it seems.) 

“That your judgment, madam, is equal to 
the reputation of your talent.” 

The words were hardly spoken, before the 
old lady rose upright as a tower. She then 
made an oblique preliminary sweep, and came 
down with such a courtesy as the young had 
never seen. 

James Quin, not to disgrace his generation, 
attempted a corresponding bow, for which his 
figure and apoplectic tendency rendered him 
unfit; and whilst he was transacting it, the 
graceful Cibber stepped gravely up, and looked 
down and up the process with his glass, like 
a naturalist inspecting some strange capriccio 
of an orang-outang. The gymnastics of court- 
esy ended without back-falls, — Cibber lowered 
his tone. 

“You are right, Bracy. It is nonsense de- 

34 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

nying the young fellow’s talent ; but his 
Othello, now, Bracy ! be just, — his Othello!” 

“O dear ! O dear !” cried she ; “I thought it 
was Desdemona’s little black boy come in 
without the tea-kettle.” 

Quin laughed uproariously. 

“It made me laugh a deal more than Mr. 
Quin’s Falstaff. O dear ! O dear !” 

“Falstaff, indeed ! Snuff !” In the tone of a 
trumpet. 

Quin secretly revoked his good opinion of 
this woman’s sense. 

“Madam,” said the page, timidly, “if you 
would but favor us with a specimen of the old 
style !” 

“Well, child, why not? Only what- makes 
you mumble like that? but they all do it now, 
I see. Bless my soul ! our words used to come 
out like brandy-cherries ; but now a sentence is 
like a raspberry-jam, on the stage and off.” 

Cibber chuckled. 

“And why don’t you men carry yourself 
like Cibber here?” 

“Don’t press that question,” said Colley, 
dryly. 

“A monstrous poor actor, though,” said the 
merciless old woman in a mock aside to the 
others ; “only twenty shillings a week for half 
his life;” and her shoulders went up to her 
ears, — then she fell into a half-revery. “Yes, 
we were distinct,” said she; “but I must own, 
children, we were slow. Once, in the midst 
35 


Charles Reade. 


of a beautiful tirade, my lover went to sleep, 
and fell against me. A mighty pretty epi- 
gram, twenty lines, was writ on ’t by one 
of my gallants. Have ye as many of them as 
we used?” 

"In that respect,” said the page, “we are not 
behind our great-grandmothers.” 

"I call that pert,” said Mrs. Bracegirdle, 
with the air of one drawing scientific distinc- 
tions. “Now, is that a boy or a lady that 
spoke to me last ?” 

"By its dress, I should say a boy,” said Cib- 
ber, with his glass; “by its assurance, a lady!” 

"There’s one clever woman amongst ye; Peg 
something, plays Lothario, Lady Betty Modish, 
and what not?” 

“What ! admire Woffington ?” screamed Mrs. 
Clive ; “why, she is the greatest gabbler on the 
stage.” 

"I don’t care,” was the reply, “there’s nature 
about the jade. Don’t contradict me,” added 
she, with sudden fury ; “a parcel of children !” 

“No, madam,” said Clive, humbly. “Mr. 
Cibber, will you try and prevail on Mrs. Brace- 
girdle to favor us with a recitation?” 

Cibber handed his cane with pomp to a 
small actor. Bracegirdle did the same; and, 
striking the attitudes that had passed for heroic 
in their day, they declaimed out of the “Rival 
Queens” two or three tirades, which I gra- 
ciously spare the reader of this tale. Their 
elocution was neat and silvery ; but not one bit 
36 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

like the way people speak in streets, palaces, 
fields, roads, and rooms. They had not made 
the grand discovery,- which Mr. A. Wigan on 
the stage, and every man of sense off it, has 
made in our day and nation ; namely, that the 
stage is a representation, not of stage, but of 
life; and that an actor ought to speak and act 
in imitation of human beings, not of speaking 
machines that have run and creaked in a stage 
groove, with their eyes shut upon the world at 
large, upon nature, upon truth, upon man, upon 
woman, and upon child. 

“This is slow,” cried Cibber ; “let us show 
these young people how ladies and gentlemen 
moved fifty years ago, dansons !’ 

A fiddler was caught, a beautiful slow min- 
uet played, and a bit of “solemn dancing” done. 
Certainly, it was not gay, but it must be owned 
it was beautiful ; it was the dance of kings, the 
poetry of the courtly saloon. 

The retired actress, however, had friskier 
notions left in her. “This is slow,” cried she, 
and bade the fiddler play, “The wind that 
shakes the barley,” an ancient jig tune; this 
she danced to in a style that utterly astounded 
the spectators. 

She showed them what fun was ; her feet 
and her stick were all echoes to the mad strain ; 
out went her heel behind, and, returning, drove 
her four yards forward. She made unaccount- 
able slants, and cut them all over in turn if 
they did not jump for it. Roars of inextin - 

37 


Charles Reade. 


guishable laughter arose, it would have made 
an oyster merry. Suddenly she stopped, and 
put her hands to her sides, and soon after she 
gave a vehement cry of pain. 

The laughter ceased. 

She gave another cry of such agony, that 
they were all round her in a moment. 

“O, help me, ladies,” screamed the poor wo- 
man, in tones as feminine as they were heart- 
rending and piteous. “O my back ! my loins ! 
I suffer, gentlemen,” said the poor thing, 
faintly. 

What was to be done? Mr. Vane offered 
his penknife to cut her laces. 

“You shall cut my head off sooner,” cried 
she, with sudden energy. “Don’t pity me,” 
said she, sadly, “I don’t deserve it;” then, lift- 
ing her eyes, she exclaimed, with a sad air of 
self-reproach : “O vanity ! do you never leave 
a woman ?” 

“Nay, madam !” whimpered the page, who 
was a good-hearted girl ; “ ’t was your great 
complaisance for us, not vanity. Oh ! oh ! oh !” 
and she began to blubber, to make matters 
better. 

“No, my children,” said the old lady, “ ’twas 
vanity, I wanted to show you what an old ’oman 
could do ; and I have humiliated myself trying 
to outshine younger folk. I am justly humil- 
iated, as you see ;” and she began to cry a little. 

“This is very painful,” said Cibber. 

Mrs. Bracegirdle now raised her eyes (they 

38 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

had set her in a chair), and looking sweetly, 
tenderly, and earnestly on her old companion, 
she said to him, slowly, gently, but impres- 
sively : “Colley, at threescore years and ten, 
this was ill done of us! You and I are here 
now — for what? to cheer the young up the hill 
we mounted years ago. And, old friend, if we 
detract from them we discourage them. A 
great sin in the old !” 

“Every dog his day !” 

“We have had ours.” Here she smiled, 
then, laying her hand tenderly in the old man’s, 
she added, with calm solemnity : “And now we 
must go quietly towards our rest, and strut 
and fret no more the few last minutes of life’s 
fleeting hour.” 

How tame my cacotype of these words 
compared with what they were. I am 
ashamed of them and myself, and the human 
craft of writing, which, though commoner 
far, is so miserably behind the godlike art of 
speech: Si ipsam audivisses! 

These ink scratches, which in the imper- 
fection of language we have called words, till 
the unthinking actually dream they are wonds, 
but which are the shadows of the corpses of 
words; these word-shadows then were living 
powers on her lips, and subdued, as eloquence 
always does, every heart within reach of the 
imperial tongue. 

The young loved her, and the old man, 
softened and vanquished, and mindful of his 

39 


Charles Reade. 


failing life, was silent, and pressed his hand- 
kerchief to his eyes a moment ; then he said : 

“No, Bracy, no. Be composed, I pray you. 
She is right. Young people, forgive me that 
I love the dead too well, and the days when I 
was what you are now. Drat the woman,” 
continued he, half ashamed of his emotion; 
“she makes us laugh, and makes us cry, just 
as she used.” 

“What does he say, young woman?” said 
the old lady, dryly, to Mrs. Clive. 

“He says you make us laugh, and make us 
cry, madam; and so you do me, I’m sure.” 

“And that’s Peg Woffington’s notion of an 
actress! Better it, Cibber and Bracegirdle, if 
you can,” said the other, rising up like light- 
ning. 

She then threw Colley Cibber a note, and 
walked coolly and rapidly out of the room, 
without looking once behind her. 

The rest stood transfixed, looking at one 
another, and at the empty chair. Then Cibber 
opened and read the note aloud. It was from 
Mrs. Bracegirdle : “Playing at tric-trac ; so 
can’t play the fool in your green-room to- 
night.— B.” 

On this, a musical ringing laugh was heard 
from outside the door, where the pseudo 
Bracegirdle was washing the gray from her 
hair, and the wrinkles from her face, — ah ! I 
wish I could do it as easily ! — and the little 
bit of sticking-plaster from her front tooth. 
40 


Peg Woffington’s Triumph. 

“Why, it is the Irish jade!” roared Cibber. 

“Divil a less !” rang back a rich brogue ; 
“and it’s not the furst time we put the 
comether upon ye, England, my jewel !” 

One more mutual glance, and then the 
mortal cleverness of all this began to dawn on 
their minds ; and they broke forth into clap- 
ping of hands, and gave this accomplished 
mime three rounds of applause; Mr. Vane 
and Sir Charles Pomander leading with, 
“Brava, Woffington !” 


41 




Jailers and Prisoners,, 


I 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND. CHAPTERS 

X. AND XI. 

With Governor Hawes, the separate and 
silent system flourished in Jail. 

The justices and the new governor were of 
one mind. They had been working togther 
about two years when Robinson came into the 
jail. 

During this period three justices had peri- 
odically visited the jail, perused the reports, 
examined, as in duty bound, the surgeon, the 
officers, and prisoners, and were proud of the 
system and its practical working here. 

With respect to Hawes, the governor, their 
opinion of him was best shown in the reports 
they had to make to the Home Office from 
time to time. In these they invariably spoke 
of him as an active, zealous, and deserving 
officer. 

Robinson had heard much of the changes 
in jail treatment, but they had nQt yet come 
home to him ; when, therefore, instead of being 
turned adrift among seventy other spirits as 
bad as himself, and greeted with their boist- 
45 


Charles Reade. 


erous acclamations, and the friendly pressure 
of seven or eight felonious hands, he was 
ushered into a cell white as driven snow, and 
his housewifely duties explained to him, under 
a heavy penalty if a speck of dirt should ever 
be discovered on his little wall, his little floor, 
his little table, or if his cocoa-bark mattress 
should not be neatly rolled up after use, and 
the strap tight, and the steel hook polished like 
glass, and his little brass gaspipe glittering 
like gold, etc., Thomas looked blank and had 
a misgiving. 

“I say, guv’nor,” said he to the under- 
turnkey, “how long am I to be here before I 
go into your yard?” 

“Talking not allowed out of hours,” was 
the only reply. 

Robinson whistled. The turnkey, whose 
name was Evans, looked at him with a doubt- 
ful air, as much as to say, “Shall I let that 
pass unpunished or not?” However, he went 
out without any further observation, leaving 
the door open ; but the next moment he re- 
turned and put his head in : “Prisoners shut 
their own doors,” said he. 

“Well!” drawled Robinson, looking coolly 
and insolently into the man’s face, “I don’t 
see what I shall gain by that.” And Mr. 
Robinson seated himself, and, turning his back 
a little rudely, immersed himself ostenta- 
tiously in his own thoughts. 

“You will gain as you won’t be put in the 

4G 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

black hole for refractory conduct, No. 19,” 
replied Evans, quietly and sternly. 

Robinson made a wry face, and pushed the 
door peevishly ; it shut with a spring, and no 
moral power or ingenuity could now open it 
from the inside. 

“Well, I’m blest,” said the self-immured, 
“every man his own turnkey now ; save the 
Queen’s pocket whatever you do. Times are 
so hard. Box at the opera costs no end. 
What have we got here ? A Bible ! my eye ! 
invisible print! Oh, I see; ’tisn’t for us to 
read, ’tis for the visitors to admire — like the 
new sheet over the dirty blankets ! What’s 
this hung up? 


‘grace after meat.’ 

Oh, with all my heart, your reverence ! Here, 
turnkey, fetch up the venison and the sweet 
sauce — you may leave the water-gruel till I 
ring for it. If I ain’t to say grace, let me feel 
it first ; drat your eyes all round, governor, 
turnkeys, chaplain, and all the hypocritical 
crew !” 

The next morning, at half past five, t u e 
prison bell rang for the officers to rise, and at 
six a turnkey unlocked Robinson’s door and 
delivered the following in an imperious key, 
all in one note, and without any rests: 
“Prisoners to open and shake bedding, wash 

47 


Charles Reade. 


face, hands and neck on pain of punishment, 
and roll up hammocks and clean cells and be 
ready to clean corridors if required.” So 
chanting — slammed door — vanished. 

Robinson set to work with alacrity upon the 
little arrangements; he soon finished them, 
and then he would not have been sorry to 
turn out and clean the corridor for a change, 
but it was not his turn. He sat, dull and 
lonely, till eight o’clock, when suddenly a key 
was inserted into a small lock in the center 
of his door, but outside; the effect of this was 
to open a small trap in the door; through this 
aperture a turnkey shoved a man’s breakfast, 
without a word, “like one flinging guts to a 
bear” (Scott) ; and, on the sociable Tom at- 
tempting to say a civil word to him, drew the 
trap sharply back, and hermetically sealed 
the aperture with a snap. The breakfast was 
in a round tin, with two compartments; one 
pint of gruel and six ounces of bread. 

These two phases of farina were familiar 
to Mr. Robinson. He ate the bread and 
drank the gruel, adding a good deal of salt. 

At nine the chapel-bell rang. Robinson 
was glad ; not that he admired the Liturgy, 
but he said to himself, “Now, I shall see a 
face or two, perhaps some old pals.” 

To his dismay, the warden who opened his 
cell bade him at the same time put on the 
prison cap, with the peak down; and, when 
he and the other male prisoners were mus- 
48 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

tered in the corridor, he found them all like 
himself, visor down, eyes glittering like basi- 
lisks’ or cats/ through two holes, features un- 
distinguishable. The word was given to 
march in perfect silence, five paces apart, to 
the chapel. 

The sullen pageant started. 

“I’ve heard of this, but who’d have thought 
they carried the game so far? Well, I must 
wait till we are in chapel, and pick up a pal 
by the voice whilst the parson is doing his 
patter.” 

On reaching the chapel, he found to his dis- 
may that the chapel was as cellular as any 
other part of the prison ; it was an agglomera- 
tion of one hundred sentry-boxes, opening 
only on the side facing the clergyman, and 
even there only from the prisoner’s third but- 
ton upward. Warders stood on raised plat- 
forms, and pointed out his sentry-box to each 
prisoner with very long slender wands ; the 
prisoner went into it and pulled the door (it 
shut with a spring), and next took his badge 
or number from his neck, and hung it up on 
a nail above his head in the sentry-box. Be- 
tween the reading-desk and the male prison- 
ers was a small area, where the debtors sat 
together. 

The female prisoners were behind a thick 
veil of close lattice-work. 

Service concluded, the governor began to 
turn a wheel in his pew; this wheel exhibited 
49 


Charles Reade. 

l:o the congregation a number; the convict 
whose number corresponded instantly took 
down his badge (the sight and position of 
which had determined the governor in work- 
ing his wheel), drew the peak of his cap over 
his face, and went out and waited in the lobby. 
When all the sentry-boxes were thus emptied, 
dead march of the whole party back to the 
main building; here the warders separated 
them, and sent them dead silent, visors down, 
some to clean the prison, some to their cells, 
some to hard labor and some to an airing in 
the yard. 

Robinson was to be aired. “Hurrah !” 
thought sociable Tom. Alas! he found the 
system in the yard as well as in the chapel. 
This promenade was a number of passages 
radiating from a common center ; the sides 
of passage were thick walls ; entrance to pas- 
sage an iron gate locked behind the prome- 
nader. An officer remained on the watch the 
whole time to see that a word did not creep 
out or in through one of the gates. 

“And this they call out-of-doors/’ grunted 
Robinson. 

After an hour’s promenade he was taken 
into his cell, where, at twelve, the trap in his 
door was opened and his dinner shoved in, 
and the trap snapped to again, all in three 
seconds. A very good dinner, better than 
paupers always get — three ounces of meat, no 
bone, eight ounces of potatoes, and eight 

50 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

ounces of bread. After dinner three weary 
hours without an incident. At about three 
o’clock one of the warders opened his cell 
door, and put his head in and swiftly with- 
drew it. Three more monotonous hours, and 
then supper — one pint of gruel, and eight 
ounces of bread. He ate it as slowly as he 
could to eke out a few minutes in the heavy 
day. Quarter before eight, a bell to go to 
bed. At eight the warders came round, and 
saw that all the prisoners were in bed. The 
next day the same thing, and the next ditto, 
with this exception, that one of the warders 
came into his cell, and minutely examined 
it in dead silence. The fourth day the chap- 
lain visited him, asked him a few questions, 
repeated a few sentences on the moral re- 
sponsibility of every human being, and set 
him sonle texts of Scripture to learn by heart. 
This visit, though merely one of routine, 
broke the thief’s dead silence and solitude ; 
and he would have been thankful to have 
a visit every day from the chaplain, whose 
manner was formal, but not surly and for- 
bidding, like the turnkeys’ or wardens’. 

Next day the governor of the jail came 
suddenly into the cell and put to Robinson 
several questions, which he answered with 
o-reat affability; then, turning on his heel, 
said brusquely, “Have you anything to say to 
me ?” 

“Yes, sir, if you please.” 

51 


Charles Reade. 


“Out with it then, my man,” said the 
governor, impatiently. 

“Sir, I was condemned to hard labor; now 
I wanted to ask you when my hard labor is 
to begin, because I have not been put upon 
anything yet.” 

“We are kinder to you than the judges then, 
it seems.” 

“Yes, sir; but I am not naturally lazy, 
and ” 

“A little hard work would amuse you just 
now ?” 

“Indeed, sir, I think it. would; I am very 
much depressed in spirits.” 

“You will be worse before you are bet- 
ter.” 

“Heaven forbid ! I think if you don’t give 
me something to do I shall go out of my mind 
soon, sin” 

“That is what they all say ! You will be 
put on hard labor, I promise you, but not 
when it suits you. We’ll choose the time.” 
And the governor went out with a knowing 
smile upon his face. 

The thief sat himself down disconsolately, 
and the heavy hours, like leaden waves, 
seemed to rise and rise, and roll over his head 
and suffocate him, and weigh him down, down, 
down to bottomless despair. 

At length, about the tenth day, this human 
being’s desire to exchange a friendly word 
with some other human creature became so 
52 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

strong, that in the chapel during service he 
scratched the door of his sentry-box, and whis- 
pered: “Mate, whisper me a word for pity’s 
sake.” He received no answer; but even to 
have spoken himself relieved his swelling soul 
for a minute or two. Half an hour later four 
turnkeys came into his cell and took him 
downstairs and confined him in a pitch-dark 
dungeon. 

The prisoner whose attention he had tried 
to attract iru chapel had told to curry favor, 
and was reported favorably for the same. 

The darkness in which Robinson now lay 
was not like the darkness of our bedrooms 
at night, in which the outlines of objects are 
more or less visible ; it was the frightful dark- 
ness that chilled and crushed the Egyptians, 
soul and body; it was a darkness that might 
be felt. 

This terrible and unnatural privation of all 
light is very trying to all God’s creatures, to 
none more so than to man, and amongst men 
it is most dangerous and distressing to those 
who have imagination and excitability. Now 
Robinson was a man of this class, a man of 
rare capacity, full of talent, and the courage 
and energy that vent themselves in action, but 
not rich in the tough fortitude which does 
little, feels little, and bears much. 

When they took him out of the black hole 
after six hours’ confinement, he was observed 
to be white as a sheet, and to tremble violently 

53 


Charles Reade. 


all over; and in this state, at the word of 
command, he crept back all the way to his cell, 
his hand to his eyes, that were dazzled by 
what seemed to him bright daylight, his body 
shaking, while every now and then a loud con- 
vulsive sob burst from his bosom. 

The governor happened to be on the corri- 
dor, looking down over the rails as Robin- 
son passed him. He said to him with a vic- 
torious sneer, “You won’t be refractory in 
chapel again in a hurry.” 

“No,” said the thief, in a low, gentle voice, 
despairingly. 

The day after Robinson was put in the black 
hole, the surgeon came his rounds; he found 
him in a corner of his cell, with his eyes fixed 
on the floor. 

The man took no notice of his entrance. 
The surgeon went up to him and shook him 
rather roughly. Robinson raised his heavy 
eyes and looked stupidly at him. 

The surgeon laid hold of him, and, placing 
a thumb on each side of his eye, inspected 
that organ fully. He then felt his pulse ; this 
done, he went out with the warder. Making 
his report to the governor, he came in turn to 
Robinson. “No. 19 is sinking.” 

“Oh, is he? Fry” (turning to a warder), 
“what has 19’s treatment been?” 

“Been in his cell, sir, without labor sinco 
he came. Black hole yesterday for communi- 
cating in chapel.” 


54 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

“What is the matter with him >” 

“Doctor says he is sinking.” 

“What the devil do you mean by his sink- 
ing?” 

“Well, sir,” replied the surgeon with a sort 
of dry deference, “he is dying — that is what I 
mean.” 

“Oh, he is dying, is he? D n him, we’ll 

stop that: here, Fry, take No. 19 out into the 
garden and set him to work, and put him on 
the corridors to-morrow.” 

“Is he to be let talk to us, sir?” 

“Humph ! yes.” 

Robinson was taken out into the garden ; 
it was a small piece of ground that had once 
been a yard;' it was inclosed within walls of 
great height, and to us would have seemed a 
cheerless place for horticulture, but to Robin- 
son it appeared the garden of Eden ; he gave 
a sigh of relief and pleasure, but the next 
moment his countenance fell. 

“They won’t let me stay here !” 

Fry took him into the center of the garden 
and put a spade info his hand. “Now you dig 
this piece,” said he, in his dry, unfriendly 
tone, “and if you have time, cut the edges of 
this grass path square.” The words were 
scarcely out of his mouth before Robinson 
drove the spade into the soil with all the energy 
of one of God’s creatures escaping from system 
back to nature. 

Fry left him in the garden after making him 

55 


Charles Reade. 


pull down his visor, for there was one more 
prisoner working at some distance. 

Robinson set to with energy, and dug for 
the bare life. It was a sort ol work he knew 
very little about, and a gardener would have 
been disgusted at his ridges, but he threw his 
whole soul into it, and very soon had nearly 
completed his task. Having been confined so 
long without exercise, his breath was short, 
and he perspired profusely; but he did not 
care for that. “Oh, how sweet this is, after 
being buried alive !” cried he, and in went the 
spade again. Presently he was seized with a 
strong desire to try the other part of his task, 
the more so as it required more skill, and 
presented a difficulty to overcome. A part of 
the path had been shaved, and the nippers 
lay where they had been last used. Robinson 
inspected the recent work with an intelligent 
eye, and soon discovered traces of a white 
line on one side of the path that served as a 
guide to the nippers. “Oh, I must draw a 
straight line,” said Robinson out loud, indulg- 
ing himself with the sound of a human voice; 
“but how? can you tell me that?” he inquired 
of a gooseberry bush that grew near. The 
words were hardly out of his mouth before, 
peering about in every direction, he discovered 
an iron spike with some cord wrapped round 
it, and not far off a piece of chalk. He 
pounced on them, and, fastening the spike at 
the edge of the path, attempted to draw a line 
56 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

with the chalk, using the string as a ruler. 
Not succeeding, he reflected a little, and the 
result was that he chalked several feet of the 
line all round until it was all white, then, with 
the help of a stake, which he took for his other 
terminus, he got the chalked string into a 
straight line just above the edge of the grass; 
next, pressing it tightly down with his foot, 
he effected a white line on the grass ; he now 
removed the string, took the nippers, and, fol- 
lowing his white line, trimmed the path 
secundum artem. “There,” said Robinson to 
the gooseberry bush, but not very loud, for 
fear of being heard and punished, “I wonder 
whether that is how the gardeners do it; I 
think it must be.” He viewed his work with 
satisfaction, then went back to his digging, 
and, as he put the finishing stroke, Fry came 
to bring him back to his cell ; it was bed- 
time. 

“I never worked in a garden before,” began 
Robinson, “so it is not so well done as it 
might be, but if I was to come every day for 
a week, I think I could master it. I did not 
know there was a garden in this prison. If 
ever I build a prison there shall be a garden 
in it as big as Belgrave Square.” 

“You are precious fond of the sound of your 
own voice, No. 19,” said Fry, dryly. 

“We are not forbidden to speak to the war- 
ders, are we?” 

“Not at proper times.” 

57 


Charles Reade. 

He threw open cell door 19, and Robinson 
entered. 

Before he could close the door Robinson 
said : “Good-night, and thank you.” 

“G’night,” snarled Fry, sullenly, as one 
shamed against his will into a civility. 

Robinson lay awake half the night, and 
awoke the next morning rather feverish and 
stiff, but not the leaden thing he was the day 
before. 

A feather turns a balanced scale. This 
man’s life and reason had been engaged in a 
drawn battle with three mortal enemies — soli- 
tude, silence, and privation of all employment. 
That little bit of labor and wholesome thought, 
whose paltry and childish details I half blush 
to have given you, were, yet due to my story, 
for they took a man out of himself, checked 
the self-devouring process, and helped elastic 
Nature to recover herself this bout. 

The next day Robinson was employed wash- 
ing the prison. The next he got two hours 
in the garden again, and the next, the trades*- 
master was sent into his cell to teach him how 
to make scrubbing-brushes. This man sat 
down and was commencing a discourse, when 
Robinson interrupted him politely. 

“Sir, let me see you work, and watch me try 
to do the same, and correct me.” 

“With all my heart,” said the trades’-master. 

He remained about half an hour with his 
pupil, and when he went out, he said to one 
58 


Jailers and Prisoners. 


of the turnkeys, “There is a chap in there that 
can pick up a handicraft as a pigeon picks up 
peas.” 

The next day the surgeon happened to look 
in. He found Robinson as busy as a bee mak- 
ing brushes, pulled his eye open again, felt 
his pulse, and wrote something down in his 
memorandum book. He left directions with 
the turnkey that No. 19 should be kept em- 
ployed, with the governor’s permission. 

Robinson’s hands were now full; he made 
brushes, and every day put some of them to 
the test upon the floor and walls of the build- 
ing. 

It happened one day, as he was doing house- 
maid in Corridor B, that he -suddenly heard 
unwonted sounds issue from a part of the 
premises into which he had not yet been intro- 
duced, the yard devoted to hard labor. First, 
he heard a single voice shouting; that did 
not last long; then a dead silence; then sev- 
eral voices, among which his quick ear recog- 
nized Fry’s and the governor’s. He could see 
nothing; the sounds came from one of the 
hard-labor cells. Robinson was surprised and 
puzzled ; what were these sounds that broke the 
silence of the living tomb? An instinct told 
him it was no use asking a turnkey, so he 
devoured his curiosity and surprise as best he 
might. 

The very next day, about the same hour, 
both were again excited by noises from the 
59 


Charles Reade. 


n 


same quarter equally unintelligible. He heard 
a great noise of water slashed in bucketfuls 
against a wall, and this was followed by a sort 
of gurgling that seemed to him to come from 
a human throat; this latter, however, was al- 
most drowned in an exulting chuckle of sev- 
eral persons, amongst whom he caught the 
tones of a turnkey called Hodges, and of the 
governor himself. Robinson puzzled and 
puzzled himself, but could not understand 
these curious sounds, and he could see nothing 
except a quantity of water running out of one 
of the labor cells, and coursing along till it 
escaped by one of the two gutters that drained 
the yard. Often and often Robinson meditated 
on this, and exerted all his ingenuity to con- 
ceive what it meant. His previous jail ex- 
perience afforded him no clew, and, as he was 
one of those who hate to be in the dark about 
any thing, this new riddle tortured him. 

However, the prison was generally so dead 
dumb and gloomy that, upon two such cheerful 
events as water splashing and creatures laugh- 
ing, he could not help crowing a little out of 
sympathy, without knowing why. 

The next day, as Robinson was working in 
the corridor, the governor came in with a 
gentleman whom he treated with unusual and 
marked respect. This gentleman was the 
chairman of the Quarter Sessions, and one of 
those magistrates who had favored the adop- 
tion of the present system. 

60 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

Mr. Williams inspected the' prison ; was 
justly pleased with its exquisite cleanness; he 
questioned the governor as to the health of the 
prisoners, and received for answer that most 
of them were well, but that there were some 
exceptions; this appeared to satisfy him. He 
went into the labor-yard, looked at the cranks, 
examined the numbers printed on each in order 
to learn their respective weights, and see that 
the prisoners were not overburdened. 

Went with the governor into three or four 
cells, and asked the prisoners if they had any 
complaints to make. 

The unanimous answer was “no.” 

He then complimented the governor, and 
drove home to his own house, Ashton Park. 

There, after dinner, he said to a brother 
magistrate, “I inspected the jail to-day; was 
all over it.” 

The next morning Fry the morose came into 
Robinson’s cell with a more cheerful counte- 
nance than usual. Robinson noticed it. 

“You are put on the crank,” said Fry. 

“Oh, am I ?” 

“Of course you are. Your sentence was 
hard labor, wasn’t it? I don’t know why you 
weren’t sent on a fortnight ago.” 

Fry then took him out into the labor-yard, 
which he found perforated with cells about 
half the size of his hermitage in the corri- 
dor. In each of these little quiet grottoes 
lurked a monster called a crank. A crank is a 

61 


Charles Reade. 


machine of this sort; there springs out of a 
vertical post an iron handle, which the work- 
man taking it by both hands works round and 
round as in some country places you may have 
seen the villagers draw a bucket up from a 
well. This iron handle goes at the shoulder 
into a small iron box at the top of the post, 
and inside that box the resistance to the turner 
is regulated by the manufacturer, who states 
the value of the resistance, outside in cast- 
iron letters. Thus : 5 lb. crank ; 7 lb. crank ; 
10, 12, etc., etc. 

“Eighteen hundred revolutions per hour,” 
said Mr. Fry, in his voice of routine, “and you 
are to work two hours before dinner.” So 
saying he left him, and Robinson, with the 
fear of punishment before him, lost not a 
moment in getting to work. He found the 
crank go easy enough at first, but the longer 
he was at it the stiffer it seemed to turn. And 
after four hundred turns he was fain to 
breathe and rest himself. He took three min- 
utes’ rest, then at it again. All this time there 
was no taskmaster, as in Egypt, nor whipper- 
up of declining sable energy, as in Old Ken- 
tucky. So that, if I am so fortunate as to 
have a reader aged ten, he is wondering why 
the fool did not confine his assertions to saying 
he had made the turns. My dear, it would not 
do. Though no mortal oversaw the thief at 
his task, the eye of Science was in that cell, 
and watched every stroke, and her inexorable 
62 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

finger marked it down. In plain English, on 
the face of the machine was a thing like a 
chronometer, with numbers set all round, and 
a hand which, somehow or other, always 
pointed to the exact number of turns the thief 
had made. The crank was an autometer, or 
self-measurer, and, in that respect, your su- 
perior and mine, my little drake. 

This was Robinson’s first acquaintance with 
the crank. The treadwheel had been the mode 
in his time ; so by the time he had made three 
thousand turns he was rather exhausted. He 
leaned upon the iron handle, and sadly re- 
gretted his garden and his brushes; but fear 
and dire necessity were upon him ; he set to 
his task, and to work again. *T won’t look at 
the meter again, for it always tells me less 
than I expect. I’ll just plow on till that beg- 
gar comes. I know he will come to the min- 
ute.” > 

Sadly and doggedly he turned the iron 
handle, and turned and turned again ; and then 
he panted and rested a minute, and then dog- 
gedly to his idle toil again. He was now so 
fatigued that his head seemed to have come 
loose, he could not hold it up, and it went 
round, and round, and round, with the crank- 
handle. Hence it was that Mr. Fry stood at 
the mouth of the den without the other seeing 
him. “Halt,” said Fry. Robinson looked up, 
and there was the turnkey inspecting him 
with a discontented air. “I’m done,” thought 
63 


Charles Reade. 

Robinson, “here he is as black as thunder — the 
number not right, no doubt.” 

“What are ye at?” growled Fry. “You 
are forty over;” and the said Fry looked not 
only ill-used, but a little unhappy. Robin- 
son’s good behavior had disappointed the poor 
soul. 

this Fry was a grim oddity; he experienced 
a feeble . complacency when things went wrong, 
but never else. 

The thief exulted, and was taken back to his 
cell. Dinner came almost immediately; four 
ounces of meat instead of three ; two ounces 
less bread, but a large access of potatoes, 
which more than balanced the account. 

The next day Robinson was put on the 
crank again, but not till the afternoon. He 
had finished about half his task; when he heard 
at some little distance from him a faint moan- 
ing. His first impulse was to run out of his 
cell and see what was the matter, but Hodges 
and Fry were both in the yard, and he knew 
that they would report him for punishment 
upon the least breach of discipline. So he 
turned and turned the crank, with these moans 
ringing in his ears, and perplexing his soul. 

Finding they did not cease, he peeped cau- 
tiously into the yard, and there he saw the 
governor himself, as well as Hodges and Fry; 
all three were standing close to the place 
whence these groans issued, and with an air 
of complete unconcern. 

64 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

But presently the groans ceased, and then, 
mysteriously enough, the little group of dis- 
ciplinarians threw off their apathy. Hodges 
and Fry went hastily to the pump with buckets, 
which they filled, and then came back to the 
governor; the next minute Robinson heard 
water dashed repeatedly against the walls of 
the cell, and then the governor laughed, and 
Hodges laughed, and even the gloomy Fry 
vented a brief, grim chuckle. 

And now Robinson quivered with curiosity 
as he turned his crank, but there was no means 
of gratifying it. It so happened, however, 
that some ten minutes later the governor sent 
Hodges and Fry to another part of the prison, 
and they had not been gone long before a mes- 
sage came to himself, on which he went hastily 
out, and the yard was left empty. Robinson’s 
curiosity had reached such a pitch that, not- 
withstanding the risk he ran, for he knew the 
governor would send back to the yard the very 
first disengaged officer he met, he could not 
stay quiet. As the governor closed the gate 
he ran with all speed to the cell, he darted in, 
and then the thief saw what made the three 
honest men laugh so. Fie saw it, and started 
back with a cry of dismay, for the sight 
chilled the felon to the bone. 

A lad about fifteen years of age was pinned 
against the wall in agony by a leathern belt 
passed round his shoulders and drawn vio- 
lently round two staples in the wall. His 
65 


Charles Reade. 

arms were jammed against his sides by a 
strait-waistcoat fastened with straps behind, 
and those straps drawn with the utmost sever- 
ity. But this was not all. A high leathern 
collar a quarter of an inch thick squeezed his 
throat in its iron grasp. His hair and clothes 
were drenched with water, which had been 
thrown in bucketfuls over him, and now 
dripped from him on the floor. His face was 
white, his lips livid, his eyes very nearly 
glazed, and his teeth chattered with cold and 
pain. 

A more unprincipled man than Robinson did 
not exist ; but burglary and larceny do not ex- 
tinguish humanity in a thinking rascal, as 
resigning the soul to system can extinguish 
it in a bull dog. 

“Oh, what is this?” cried Robinson, “what 
are the villains doing to you ?” 

He received no answer ; but the boy’s eyes 
opened wide, and he turned those glazing eyes, 
the only part of his body he could turn, .to- 
ward the speaker. Robinson ran up to him, 
and began to try and loosen him. 

At this the boy cried out, almost screaming 
with terror, “Let me alone! let me alone! 
They’ll give it me worse if you do, and they’ll 
serve you out too !” 

“But you will die, boy. Look at his poor 
lips !” 

“No, no, no ! I shan’t die ! No such luck !” 
cried the boy, impatiently and wildly. “Thank 
66 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

you for speaking kind to me. Who are you? 
tell me quick, and go. I am — Josephs, No. 
15, Corridor A.” 

“I am Robinson, No. 19, Corridor B.” 

“Good-bye, Robinson, I shan’t forget you. 
Hark, the door ! Go ! go ! go ! go ! go !” 

Robinson was already gone. He had fled 
at the first click of a key in the outward door, 
and darted into his cell at the moment Fry 
got into the yard. An instinct of suspicion 
led this man straight to Robinson’s hermitage. 
He found him hard at work. Fry scrutinized 
his countenance, but Robinson was too good 
an actor to betray himself; only when Fry 
passed on he drew a long breath. What he 
had seen surprised as well as alarmed him, for 
he had always been told the new system dis- 
couraged personal violence of all sorts ; and in 
all his experience of the old jails, he had 
never seen a prisoner abused so savagely as 
the young ihartyr in the adjoining cell. His 
own work done, he left for his own dormi- 
tory. He was uneasy, and his heart was 
heavy for poor Josephs, but he dared not even 
cast a look toward his place of torture, for the 
other executioners had returned, and Fry fol- 
lowed grim at his heels, like a mastiff dog- 
ging a stranger out of the premises. 

That evening Robinson spent in gloomy re- 
flections and forebodings. “I wish I was in 
the hulks, or anywhere out of this place,” 
said he. As for Josephs, the governor, after 

67 


Charles Reade. 


inspecting his torture for a few minutes, left 
the yard again with his subordinates, and 
Josephs was left alone with his great torture 
for two hours more, then Hodges came in and 
began to loose him, swearing at him all the 
time for a little rebellious monkey that gave 
more trouble than enough. The rebellious 
monkey made no answer, but crawled slowly 
away to his dungeon, shivering in his drenched 
clothes, stiff and sore, his bones full of pain, 
his heart full of despondency. 

Robinson had now eight thousand turns of 
the crank per day, and very hard work he 
found it ; but he preferred it to being buried 
alive all day in his cell ; and, warned by 
Josephs’s fate, he went at the crank with all 
his soul, and never gave them an excuse for 
calling him “refractory.’' It happened, how- 
ever, one day, just after breakfast, that he was 
taken with a headache and shivering; and not 
getting better after chapel, but rather worse, 
he rang his bell, and begged to see the surgeon. 
The surgeon ought to have been in the jail 
at this hour; he was not, though; and as he 
had been the day before, and was accustomed 
to neglect the prisoners for any one who paid 
better, he was not expected this day. Soon 
after Fry came to the cell and ordered Robin- 
son out to the crank. Robinson told him he 
was too ill to work. 

“I must have the surgeon’s authority for 

68 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

that before I listen to it,” replied Fry, amateur 
of routine. 

“But he is not in the jail, or you would have 
it.” 

“Then he ought to be.” 

“Well, is it my fault he’s shirking his duty? 
Send for him, and you’ll see he will tell you I 
am not fit for the crank to-day, my head is 
splitting.” 

“Come, no gammon, No. 19 ; it is the crank, 
or the jacket, or else the black hole. So, take 
which you like best.” 

Robinson rose with a groan of pain and de- 
spondency. 

“It is only eight thousand words you have 
got to say to it, and that is not many for such 
a tongue as yours.” 

At the end of the time Fry came to the 
mouth of the labor-cell with a grim chuckle : 
“He will never have done his number this 
time.” He found Robinson kneeling on the 
ground, almost insensible, the crank handle 
convulsively grasped in his hands. Fry’s first 
glance was at this figure, that a painter might 
have taken for a picture of labor overtasked; 
but this was neither new nor interesting to 
Fry. He went eagerly to examine the meter 
of the crank — there lay his heart, such as it 
was — and, to his sorrow, he found that No. 
19 had done his work before he broke down. 
What it cost the poor, fever-stricken wretch 
to do it can easier be imagined than described, 
69 


Charles Reade. 


They assisted Robinson to his cell, and that 
night he was in a burning fever. The next 
day the surgeon happened by some accident 
to be at his post, and prescribed change of 
diet and medicines for him. “He would be 
better in the infirmary.” 

“Why?” said the governor. 

“More air.” 

“Nonsense, there is plenty of air here: there 
is a constant stream of air comes in through 
this,” and he pointed to a revolving cylinder 
in the window constructed for that purpose. 
“You give him the right stuff, doctor,” said 
Hawes, jocosely, “and he won’t slip his wind 
this time.” 

The surgeon acquiesced according to cus- 
tom. 

It was not for him to contradict Hawes, 
who allowed him to attend the jail or neglect 
it according to his convenience, i.e. } to come 
three or four times a week at different hours, 
instead of twice every day at fixed hours. 

It was two days after this that the govern- 
or saw Hodges come out of a cell laughing. 

“What are ye grinning at?” said he, in his 
amiable way. 

“No. 19 is light-headed, sir, and I have been 
listening to him. It would make a cat laugh,” 
said Hodges, apologetically. He knew well 
enough the governor did not approve of laugh- 
ing in the jail. 

The governor said nothing, but made a mo- 

:o 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

tion with his hand, and Hodges opened cell 
19, and they both went in. 

No. 19 lay on his back flushed and restless, 
with his eyes fixed on vacancy, He was talk- 
ing incessantly., and without sequence. I 
should fail signally were I to attempt to trans- 
fer his words to paper. I feel my weakness, 
and the strength of others who, in my day, 
have shown a singular power of fixing on 
paper the volatile particles of frenzy ; however, 
in a word, the poor thief was talking as our 
poetasters write, and amidst his gunpowder, 
daffodils, bosh, and other constellations, there 
mingled gleams of sense and feeling that would 
have made you and me very sad. 

He often recurred to a girl he called Mary, 
and said a few gentle words to her ; then off 
again into the wildest flights. While Mr. 
Hawes and his myrmidons were laughing at 
him, he suddenly fixed his eyes on some imagi- 
nary figure on the opposite wall, and began 
to cry out loudly: “Take him down. Don’t 
you see you are killing him? The collar is 
choking him ! See how white he is ! His 
eyes stare ! The boy will die ! Murder ! 
murder! murder ! I can’t bear to see him die.” 
And with these words he buried his head in 
the bedclothes. 

Mr. Hawes looked at Mr. Fry; Mr. Fry an- 
swered the look: “He must have seen Josephs 
the other day.” 

“Ay ! he is mighty curious. Well, when he 

71 


Charles Reade. 


gets well !” and, shaking his fist at the suf- 
ferer, Mr. Hawes went out of the cell soon 
after. 

“What is your report about No. 19, doctor?" 

“The fever is gone.” 

“He is well, then?” 

“He is well of the fever, but a fever leaves 
the patient in a state of debility for some days. 
I have ordered him meat twice a day; that is 
meat once, and soup once.” 

“Then you report him cured of his fever?” 

“Certainly.” 

“Hodges, put No. 19 on the crank.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Even the surgeon opened his eyes at this. 
“Why, he is as weak as a child,” said he. 

“Will it kill him?” 

“Certainly not; and for the best of all rea- 
sons. He can’t possibly do it.” 

“You don’t know what these fellows can do 
when they are forced.” 

The surgeon shrugged his shoulders and 
passed on to his other patients. Robinson was 
taken out into the yard. “What a blessing the 
fresh air is !” said he, gulping in the atmos- 
phere of the yard. “I should have got well 
long ago if I had not been stifled in my cell 
for want of room and air.” 

Robinson went to the crank in good spirits; 
he did not know how weak he was till he be- 
gan to work; but he soon found out he could 
net do the task in the time. He thought there- 
72 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

fore the wisest plan would be not to exhaust 
himself in vain efforts, and he sat quietly 
down and did nothing. In this posture he was 
found by Hawes and his myrmidons. 

“What are you doing there not working ?” 

“Sir, I am only just getting well of a fever, 
and I am as weak as water.” 

“And that is why you are not trying to do 
anything, eh ?” 

“I have tried, sir, and it is impossible. I 
am not fit to turn this heavy crank.” 

“Well, then, I must try if 1 can’t make you. 
Fetch the jacket.” 

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake don’t torture me, 
sir. There is nobody more willing to work 
than I am. And if you will but^ive me a day 
or two to get my strength after the fever, you 
shall see how I will work.” 

“There! there! — your palaver! Strap him 
up.” 

He was in no condition to resist, and, more- 
over, knew resistance was useless. They 
jammed him in the jacket, pinned him tight to 
the wall, and throttled him in the collar. This 
collar, by a refinement of cruelty, was made 
with unbound edges, so that when the victim, 
exhausted with the cruel cramp that racked 
his aching bones in the fierce gripe of Hawes’s 
infernal machine, sunk his heavy head and 
drooped his chin, the jagged collar sawed him 
directly, and, lacerating the flesh, drove him 
away from even this miserable approach to 
73 . 


Charles Reade. 


ease. Robinson had formed an idea of the 
torture. The victims of the Inquisition would 
have gained but little by becoming victims of 
the separate and silent system in Jail. 

They left the poor fellow pinned to the wall, 
jammed in the strait waistcoat, and throttled in 
the round saw. Weakened by fever and un- 
natural exertion, he succumbed sooner than the 
inquisitors had calculated upon. The next 
time they came into the yard they found him 
black in the face, his lips livid, insensible, 
throttled, and dying. Another half minute, 
and there would have hung a corpse in the 
Hawes pillory. 

When they saw how nearly he was gone 
they were all at him together. One unclasped 
the saw collar, one unbraced the waistcoat, 
another sprinkled water over him — not a 
bucketful this time, because they would have 
wetted themselves. Released from the infer- 
nal machine, the body of No. 19 fell like a 
lump of clay upon the men who had reduced 
him to this condition. Then these worthies 
were in some little trepidation; for, though 
they had caused the death of many men dur- 
ing the last two years, they had not yet, as it 
happened, murdered a single one on the spot, 
openly and honestly like this, and they feared 
they might get into trouble. Adjoining the 
yard was a bathroom ; to this they carried No. 
19 ; they stripped him, and let the water run 
upon him from the cock, but he did not come 
74 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

to; then they scrubbed him,' just as they would 
a brick floor, with a hard brush upon the back 
till his flesh was as red as blood ; with this and 
the water together he began to gasp and sigh, 
and faintly come back from insensibility to a 
new set of tortures ; but so long was the 
struggle between life and death that these men 
of business, detained thus unconscionably 
about a single thief, lost all patience with him-; 
one scrubbed him till the blood came under 
the bristles, another seized him by the hair of 
his head and jerked his head violently back 
several times, and this gave him such pain that 
he began to. struggle instinctively, and, the 
blood now fairly set in motion, he soon moved. 
The last thing he remembered was a body full 
of aching bones; the first he awoke to was the 
sensation of being flayed alive from the crown 
of his head to the sole of his foot. 

The first word he heard was, “Put his 
clothes on his shamming carcass !” 

“Shall we dry him, sir?” 

“Dry him !” roared the governor, with an 
oath. “No ! Hasn’t he given trouble 
enough?” (another oath). 

They flung his clothes upon his red-hot 
dripping skin, and Hodges gave him a brutal 
push. “Go to your cell.” Robinson crawled 
off, often wincing, and trying in vain to keep 
his clothes from rubbing those parts of his 
person where they had scrubbed the skin off 
him. 


Charles Reade. 


Hawes eyed him with grim superiority. 
Suddenly he had an inspiration. “Come 
back !” shouted he. “I never was beat by a 
prisoner yet, and I never will. Strap him up.” 
At this command even the turnkeys looked 
amazed at one another, and hesitated. Then 
the governor swore horribly at them, and 
Hodges, without another word, went for the 
jacket. 

They took hold of him; he made no resist- 
ance ; he never even looked at them. He never 
took his eye off Hawes; on him his eye fast- 
ened like a basilisk. They took him away, and 
pinioned, jammed, and throttled him to the 
wall again. Hodges was set to watch him, 
and a bucket of water near to throw over him, 
should he show the least sign of shamming 
again. In an hour another turnkey came and 
relieved Hodges; in another hour Fry re- 
lieved him, for this was tiresome work for a 
poor turnkey ; in another hour a new hand re- 
lieved Fry, but nobody relieved No. 19. 

Five mortal hours had he been in the vise 
without shamming. The pain his skin suffered 
from the late remedies, and the 1 deadly rage 
at his heart, gave him unnatural powers of re- 
sistance, but at last the infernal machine con- 
quered, and he begun to turn dead faint, then 
Hodges, his sentinel at the time, caught up 
the bucket and dashed the whole contents over 
him. The effect was magical ; the shock took 
away his breath for a moment, but the next 
76 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

the blood seemed to glow with fire in his veins, 
and he felt a general access of vigor to bear 
his torture. When this man had been six 
hours in the vise the governor and his myr- 
midons ‘came into the yard and unstrapped 
him. 

“You did not beat me, you see, after all,”' 
said the governor to No. 19. The turnkeys 
heard and revered their chief. No. 19 looked 
him full in the face with an eye glittering like 
a saber, but said no word. 

“Sulky brute !” cried the governor, “lock 
him up” (oath). And that evening as a war- 
der was rolling the prisoner’s supper along the 
little natural .railway made by the two rail- 
ings of Corridor B, the governor stopped the 
carriage and asked for No. 19’s tin. It was 
riven him, and he abstracted one half of the 
man’s gruel. “Refractory in the yard to-day; 
but I’ll break him before I’ve done with him” 
(oath) . 

The next day brushes were wanted for the 
jail. This saved Robinson for that day. It 
was little Josephs’s turn to suffer. The gov- 
ernor put him on a favorite crank of his, and 
gave him eight thousand turns to do in four 
hours and a half. He knew the boy could not 
do it, and this was only a formula he went 
through previous to pillorying the lad. 
Josephs had been in the pillory about an hour 
when it so happened that the Reverend John 
Jones, the chaplain of the jail, came into the 

77 


Charles Reade. 


yard. Seeing a group of warders at the mouth 
of the labor-cell, he walked up to them, and 
there was Josephs in peine forte ct dure . 

“What is this lad’s offense?” inquired Mr. 
Jones. 

“Refractory at the crank,” was the reply. 

“Why, Josephs,” said the reverend gentle- 
man, “you told me you would always do your 
best.” 

“So I do, your reverence,” gasped Josephs, 
“but this crank is too heavy for a lad like me, 
and that is why I am put on it to get pun- 
ished.” 

“Hold your tongue,” said Hodges, roughly. 

“Why is he to hold his tongue, Mr. Hodges ?” 
said the chaplain, quietly ; “how is he to answer 
my question if he holds his tongue? you forget 
yourself.” 

“Ugh ! beg your pardon, sir, but this one has 
always got some excuse or other.” 

“What is the matter?” roared a rough voice 
behind the speakers. This was Hawes, who 
had approached them unobserved. 

“He is gammoning his reverence, sir, that 
is all.” 

“What has he been saying?” 

“That the crank is too heavy for him, sir, 
and the waistcoat is strapped too tight, it 
seems.” 

“Who says so?” 

“I think so, Mr. Hawes.” 

“Will you take a bit of advice, sir? If you 

78 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

wish a prisoner well, don’t you come between 
him and me. It will always be the worse for 
him, for I am master here, and master I will 
be.” 

“Mr. Hawes,” replied the chaplain, “I have 
never done or said anything in the prison to 
lessen your authority, but privately I must re- 
monstrate against the uncommon severities 
practiced upon prisoners in this jail. If you 
will listen to me I shall be much obliged to 
you: if not, I am afraid I must, as a matter of 
conscience, call the attention of the visiting 
justices to the question.” 

“Well, parson, the justices will be in the jail 
to-day; you tell them your story, and I will 
tell them mine,” said Hawes, with a cool air 
of defiance. 

Sure enough, at five o’clock in the afternoon, 
two of the visiting justices arrived, accom- 
panied by Mr. Wright, a young magistrate. 
They were met at the door by Hawes, who 
wore a look of delight at their appearance. 
They went round the prison with him, whilst 
he detained them in the center of the building 
till he had sent Hodges secretly to undo 
Josephs and set him on the crank; and here the 
party found him at work. 

“You have been a long time on the crank, 
my lad,” said Hawes; “you may go to your 
cell.” 

Josephs touched his cap to the governor and 
the gentlemen, and went off. 

79 


Charles Reade. 


“That is a nice quiet-looking boy,” said one 
of the justices; “what is he in forr” 

“He is in this time for stealing a piece of 
beef out of a butcher’s shop.” 

“This time ! what ! is he a hardened of- 
fender? he does not look it.” 

“He has been three times in prison ; once for 
throwing stones, once for orchard-robbing, and 
this time for the beef.” 

“What a young villain ! at his age ” 

“Don’t say that, Williams,” said Mr. Wright, 
dryly; “you and I were just as great villains at 
his age. Didn’t we throw stones? rather!” 

Hawes laughed in an adulatory manner, but, 
observing that Mr. Williams, who was a grave, 
pompous personage, did not smile, at all, he 
added : 

“But not to do mischief like this one, I’ll 
be bound.” 

“No,” said Mr. Williams, with an air of 
ruffled dignity. 

“No?” cried the other, “where is your 
memory? Why, we threw stones at every- 
thing and everybody, and I suppose we did not 
always miss, eh ? I remember your throwing 
a stone through the window of a place of 
worship (this was a school-fellow of mine, and 
led me into all sorts of wickedness) : I say, 
was it a Wesleyan shop, Williams, or a Bap- 
tist? for I forget. Never mind, you had a fit 
of orthodoxy. What was the young villain’s 
second offense?” 


80 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

“Robbing an orchard, sir.” 

“The scoundrel ! robbing an orchard ? Oh, 
what sweet reminiscences those words recall. 
I say, Williams, do you remember Uj two rob- 
bing Farmer Harris’s orchard?” 

“I remember you robbing it, and my char- 
acter suffering for it.” 

“I don’t remember that; but I remember my 
climbing the pear tree and flinging the pears 
down, and finding them all grabbed on my 
descent. What is the young villain’s next? 
Ah, snapping a piece off a counter. Ah! we 
never did that, because we could always get 
it without stealing it.” 

With this Mr. Wright strolled away from 
the others, having had what thejocose wretch 
used to call “a slap at humbug.” 

His absence was a relief to the others. 
These did not come there to utter sense in 
fun, but to jest in sober earnest. 

Mr. Williams hinted as much, and Hawes, 
whose cue it was to assent in everything to the 
justices, brightened his face up at the re- 
mark. 

“Will you visit the cells, gentlemen,” said 
he, with an accent of cordial invitation; “or 
inspect the book first?” 

They gave precedence to the latter. 

By the book was meant the log-book of the 
jail. In it the governor was required to report 
for the justices and the Home Office all jail 
events a little out of the usual routine. For 

81 


Charles Reade. 


instance, all punishments of prisoners, all con- 
siderable sicknesses, deaths, and their supposed 
causes, etc., etc. 

“This Josephs seems by the book to be an 
ill-conditioned fellow, he is often down for 
punishment.” 

“Yes; he hates work. About Gillies, sir, 
ringing his bell, and pretending it was an acci- 
dent?” 

“Yes; how old is he?” 

“Thirteen.” 

“Is this his first offense?” 

“Not by a good many. I think, gentlemen, 
if you were to order him a flogging, it would 
be better for him ifi the end.” 

“Well, give him twenty lashes. Eh, Pal- 
mer?” 

Mr. Palmer assented by a nod. 

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Hawes, “but 
will you allow me to make a remark?” 

“Certainly, Mr. Hawes, certainly.” 

“I find twenty lashes all at once rather too 
much for a lad of that age. Now, if you 
would allow me to divide the punishment into 
two, so that his health might not be endan- 
gered by it, then we could give him ten, or 
even twelve, and after a day or two, as many 
more.” 

“That speaks well for your humanity, Mr. 
Hawes ; your zeal we have long known.” 

“Augh, sir ! sir !” 

“I will sign the order, and we authorize you 

82 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

here to divide the punishment, according to 
your own suggestion” (order signed). 

The justices then went round the cells, ac- 
companied by Hawes. They went into the 
cells with an expression of a little curiosity, 
but more repugnance on their faces, and asked 
several prisoners if they were well and con- 
tented. The men looked with the shrewdness 
of their class into their visitors' faces and 
measured them ; saw there, first, a feeble un- 
derstanding, secondly, an adamantine preju- 
dice; saw that in those eyes they were wild 
beasts, and Hawes an angel, and answered to 
please Hawes, whose eye was fixed on them 
all this time, and in whose power they felt they 
were. 

All expressed their content ; some in tones so 
languid and empty of heart that none but Jus- 
tice Shallow could have helped seeing through 
the humbug. Others did it better; and not a 
few overdid it, so that any but Justice .Shallow 
would have seen through them. These last 
told Messrs. Shallow and Slender that the best 
thing that ever happened to them was coming 

to Jail. They thanked Heaven they had 

been pulled up short in an evil career that 
must have ended in their ruin, body and soul. 
As for their present situation, they were never 
happier in their lives, and some of them 
doubted much whether, when they should 
reach the penal settlements, the access of lib- 
erty would repay them for the increased temp- 
83 


Charles Reade. 


tations, and the loss of quiet meditation and 
self-communion, and the good advice of Mr. 
Hawes, and of his reverence the chaplain. 

The jail-birds who piped this tune were, 
without a single exception, the desperate cases 
of this moral hospital ; they were old offenders 
— hardened scoundrels, who meant to rob, and 
kill, and deceive to their dying day. While 
in prison, their game was to be as comfort- 
able as they could. Hawes could make them 
uncomfortable; he was always there. Under 
these circumstances, to lie came on the instant 
as natural to them as to rob would have come 
had some power transported them outside the 
prison doors, with these words of penitence on 
their lips. 

They asked where that Josephs’s cell was. 
Hawes took them to him. They inspected 
him with a profound zoological look, to see 
whether it was more wolf or badger. Strange 
to say, it looked neither, but a simple, quiet 
youth of the human genus — species snob. 

“He is very small to be such a ruffian,” said 
Mr. Palmer. 

“I am sorry, Josephs,” said Mr. Williams, 
pompously, “to find your name so often down 
for punishment.” 

Josephs looked up, hoping to see the light 
of sympathy in this speaker’s eyes. He saw 
two owls’ faces attempting eagle, but not 
reaching up to sparrow-hawk, and he was si- 
lent. He had no hope of being believed; 
84 


Jailers and Prisoners. 

moreover, the grim eye of Hawes rested on 
him, and no feebleness in it. 

Messrs. Shallow and Slender receiving no 
answer from Josephs, who was afraid to tell 
the truth, were nettled, and left the cell 
shrugging their shoulders. 

In the corridor they met the train just com- 
ing along the banisters with supper. Pompous 
Mr. Williams tasted the prison diet on the 
spot. 

“It is excellent,” cried he; “why the gruel 
is like glue.” And he fell into meditation. 

“So far every thing is as we could wish, 
Mr. Hawes, and it speaks well for the disci- 
pline and for yourself.” 

Hawes bowed with a gratified air. 

“I will complete the inspection to-morrow.” 

Hawes accompanied the gentlemen to the 
outside gate. Here Mr. Williams turned. 
For the last minute or two he had been in the 
throes of an idea, and now he delivered him- 
self of it. 

“It would be well if Josephs’s gruel were 
not made so strong for him.” 

Mr. Williams was not one of those who 
often say a great thing, but this deserves im- 
mortality, and, could 1 confer immortality, 
this of Williams’s should never die. Unlike 
most of the things we say, it does not deserve 
ever to die. 

“It would be well if Josephs’s gruel were 

NOT MADE SO STRONG FOR HIM !” 

85 



The Courtship of Kate Peyton. 



The Courtship of Kate Peyton. 


GRIFFITH GAUNT. CHAPTER X. 

( Kate Peyton has inherited estates of which 
Griffith Gaunt had always supposed himself to 
be the heir. Griffith is in love with Kate , and 
she , half unconsciously , with him. But her 
father and Father Francis , her confessor , are 
trying to force her to marry a certain Sir 
George Neville. Griffith has been wounded in 
a duel fought for her sake.) 

Drive a donkey too hard, it kicks. 

Drive a man too hard, it hits. 

Drive a woman too hard, it cajoles. 

. Now among them they had driven Kate 
Peyton too hard ; so she secretly formed a 
bold resolution, and, this done, her whole 
manner changed for the better. She turned 
to Neville, and flattered and fascinated him. 
The most feline of her sex could scarcely equal 
her calinerie on this occasion. But she did 
not confine her fascination to him. She broke 
out, pro bono publico , like the sun in April, 
with quips, and cranks, and dimpled smiles, 
and made everybody near her quite forget her 
late hauteur and coldness, and bask in this 

89 


Charles Reade. 


sunny, sweet hostess. When the charm was 
at its height, the siren cast a seeming merry 
glance at Griffith, and said to a lady opposite, 
“Methinks some of the gentlemen will be glad 
to be rid of us,” and so carried the ladies off 
to the drawing-room. 

There her first act was to dismiss her smiles 
without ceremony, and her second was to sit 
down and write four lines to the gentleman 
at the head of the dining-table. 

And he was as drunk as a fiddler. 

Griffith’s friends laughed heartily with him, 
while he was getting drunk : and when he had 
got drunk, they laughed still louder, only at 
him. 

They “knocked him down” for a song; and 
he sang a rather Anacreontic one very melo- 
diously, and so loud that certain of the ser- 
vants, listening outside, derived great delec- 
tation from it; and Neville applauded ironi- 
cally. 

Soon after they “knocked him down” for a 
story; and as it requires more brains to tell 
a story than to sing a song, the poor butt 
made an ass of himself. He maundered and 
wandered, and stopped, and, went on, and 
lost one thread and took up another, and got 
into a perfect maze. And while he was thus 
entangled, a servant came in and brought him 
a note, and put it in his hand. The unhappy 
narrator received it with a sapient nod, but 
was too polite, or else too stupid, to open 


The Courtship of Kate Peyton. 

it, so closed his fingers on it, and went maun- 
dering on till his story trickled into the sand 
of the desert, and somehow ceased; for it 
could not be said to end, being a thing with- 
out head or tail. 

He sat down amid derisive cheers. About 
five minutes afterward, in some intermittent 
flash of reason, he found he had got hold of 
something. He opened his hand, and lo, a 
note ! On this he chuckled unreasonably, and 
distributed sage, cunning winks around, as 
if he, by special ingenuity, had caught a night- 
ingale, or the like ; then, with sudden hauteur 
and gravity, proceeded to examine his prize. 

But he knew the handwriting at once, and 
it gave him a galvanic shock that half sobered 
him for the moment. 

He opened the note, and spelled it with 
great difficulty. It was beautifully written, 
in long, clear letters ; but then those letters 
kept dancing so ! 

“I much desire to speak to you before ’tis 
too late, but can think of no way save one. I 
lie in the turreted room ; come under my room 
at nine of the clock; and prithee come sober, if 
you respect yourself, or Kate.” 

Griffith put the note in his pocket, and tried 
to think; but he could not think to much 
purpose. Then this made him suspect he was 
drunk. Then he tried to be sober, but he 

91 


Charles Reade. 


found he could not. He sat in a sort of stupid 
agony, with Love and Drink battling for his 
brain. It was piteous to see the poor fool’s 
struggles to regain the reason he had so madly 
parted with. He could not do it; and when 
he found that, he took up a finger-glass, and 
gravely poured the contents upon his head. 

At this there was a burst of laughter. 

This irritated Mr. Gaunt, and, with that 
rapid change of sentiments which marks the 
sober savage and the drunken European, he 
pffered to fight a gentleman that he had been 
hitherto holding up to the company as his 
best friend. But his best friend (a very dis- 
tant acquaintance) was by this time as tipsy 
as himself, and offered a piteous disclaimer, 
mingled with tears ; and these maudlin drops 
so affected Griffith that he flung his one 
available arm round his best friend’s head, 
and wept in turn, and down went both their 
lachrymose, empty noddles on the table. 
Griffith’s remained there; but his best friend 
extricated himself, and shaking his skull, said 
dolefully, “He is very drunk.” This notable 
discovery, coming from such a quarter, caused 
considerable merriment. 

“Let him alone,” said an old toper ; and 
Griffith remained a good hour with his head 
on the table. Meantime the other gentlemen 
soon put it out of their power to ridicule him 
on the score of intoxication. 

Griffith, keeping quiet, got a little better, 

92 


The Courtship of Kate Peyton. 

and suddenly started up with a notion he was 
to go to Kate this very moment. He mut- 
tered an excuse, and staggered to a glass 
door that led to the lawn. He opened this 
door, and rushed out into the open air. He 
thought it would set him all right ; but, instead 
of that, it made him so much worse that 
presently his legs came to a misunderstanding, 
and he measured his length on the ground, 
and could not get up again, but kept slipping 
down. 

Upon this he groaned and lay quiet. 

Now there was a foot of snow on the 
ground, and it melted about Griffith’s hot tem- 
ples and flushed face, and mightily refreshed 
and revived him. 

He sat up and kissed Kate’s letter, and Love 
began to get the upper hand of Liquor a little. 

Finally he got up and half strutted, half 
staggered to the turret, and stood under 
Kate’s window. 

The turret was covered with luxuriant ivy, 
and that ivy with snow. So the glass of the 
window was set in a massive frame of win- 
ter; but a bright fire burned inside the room, 
and this set the panes all aflame. It was 
cheery and glorious to see the window glow 
like a sheet of transparent fire in its deep 
frame of snow ; but Griffith could not ap- 
preciate all that. He stood there a sorrowful 
man. The wine he had taken to drown his 
despair had lost its stimulating effect, and had 
93 


Charles Reade. 

given him a heavy head, but left him his sick 
heart. 

He stood and puzzled his drowsy faculties 
why Kate had sent for him. Was it to bid 
him good-bye forever, or to lessen his misery 
by telling him she would not marry another? 
He soon gave up cudgeling his enfeebled 
brains. Kate was a superior being to him, and 
often said things and did things, that sur- 
prised him. She had sent for him, and that 
was enough. He should see her and speak 
to her once more, at all events. He stood, 
alternately nodding and looking up at her 
glowing room, and longing for its owner to 
appear. But as Bacchus had inspired him 
to mistake eight o’clock for nine, and as she 
was not a votary of Bacchus, she did not ap- 
pear, and he stood there till he began to 
shiver. 

The shadow of a female passed along the 
wall, and Griffith gave a great start. Then 
he heard the fire poked. Soon after he saw 
the shadow again, but it had a large servant’s 
cap on ; so his heart had beaten high for Mary 
or Susan. He hung his head, disappointed, 
and, holding on by the ivy, fell a-nodding 
again. 

By and by one of the little casements was 
opened softly. He looked up, and there was 
the right face peering out. 

Oh, what a picture she was in the moon- 
light and the firelight! They both fought 

94 


The Courtship of Kate Peyton. 

for that fair head, and each got a share of 
it : the full moon’s silvery beams shone on 
her rose-like cheeks and li’ified them a shade, 
and lit her great gray eyes and made them 
gleam astoundingly ; but the ruby firelight 
rushed at her from behind, and flowed over 
her golden hair, and rejdened and glorified 
it till it seemed more than mortal. And all 
this in a very picture-frame of snow. 

Imagine, then, how sweet and glorious she 
glowed on him who loved her, and who looked 
at her perhaps for the last time. 

The sight did wonders to clear his head; 
he stood open-mouthed, with his heart beating. 
She looked him all over a moment. “Ah !” 
said she. Then, quietly, “I am so glad you 
are come.” Then, kindly and regretfully, 
“How pale you look ! you are unhappy.” 

This greeting, so gentle and kind, over- 
powered Griffith. His heart was too full to 
speak. 

Kate waited a moment ; and then, as he 
did not reply to her, she began to plead to 
him. “I hope you are not angry with me,” 
she said, “/ did not want him to leave me your 
estates. I would not rob you • of them for 
the world, if I had my way.” 

“Angry with you !” said Griffith. “I’m not 
such a villain. Mr. Charlton did the right 
thing, and — ” He could say no more. 

“I do not think so,” said Kate. “But don’t 
you fret ; all shall be settled to your satis- 
95 


Charles Reade. 


faction. I cannot quite love you, but I have 
a sincere affection for you, and so I ought. 
Cheer up, dear Griffith ; don’t you be down- 
hearted about what has happened to-day.” 

Griffith smiled. “I don’t feel unhappy,” he 
said ; “I did feel as if my heart was broken. 
But then you seemed parted from me. Now 
we are together ; I feel as happy as ever. 
Mistress, don’t you ever shut that window 
and leave me in the dark again. Let me stand 
and look at your sweet face all night, and I 
shall be the happiest man in Cumberland.” 

“Ay,” said Kate, blushing at his ardor ; 
“happy for a single night; but when I go 
away you will be in the dumps again, and 
perhaps get tipsy; as if that could mend mat- 
ters? Nay, I must set your happiness on 
stronger legs than that. Do you know I have 
got permission to undo this cruel will, and 
let you have Bolton Hall and Hernshaw 
again ?” 

Griffith looked pleased, but rather puzzled. 

Kate went on, but not so glibly now. 

“However,” said she, a little nervously, 
“there is one condition to it that will cost us 
both some pain. If you consent to accept 
these two estates from me, who don’t value 
them one straw, why then ” 

She hesitated. 

“Well, what?” he gasped. 

“Why, then, my poor Griffith, we shall be 
bound in honor — you and I — not to meet for 
96 


The Courtship of Kate Peyton. 

some months, perhaps for a whole year; in 
one word — do not hate me — not till you can 
bear to see me — another — man’s — wife.” 

The murder being out, she hid her face in 
her hands directly, and in that attitude 
awaited his reply. 

Griffith stood petrified a moment, and I don’t 
think his intellects were even quite clear 
enough to take it all in at once. But at last 
he did comprehend it, and when he did, he 
just uttered a loud cry of agony, and then 
turned his back on her without a word. 

Man does not speak by words alone. A mute 
glance of reproach has ere now pierced the 
heart a tirade would have left untouched, and 
even an inarticulate cry may utter volumes. 

Such an eloquent cry was that with which 
Griffith Gaunt turned his back upon the an- 
gelical face he adored, and the soft, per- 
suasive tongue. There was agony, there was 
shame, there was wrath, all in that one ejacu- 
lation. 

It frightened Kate. She called him back. 

“Don’t leave me so,” she said. “I know I 
have affronted you, but I meant all for the 
best. Do not let us part in anger.'’ 

At this Griffith returned in violent agitation. 

“It is your fault for making me speak,” he 
cried. “I was going away without a word, 
as a man should that is insulted by a woman. 
You heartless girl! What! you bid me sell 
you to that man for two dirty farms ! Oh, 

97 


Charles Reade. 


well you know Bolton and Hernshaw were 
but the steps by which I hoped to climb to 
you; and now you tell me to part with you 
and take those miserable acres instead of my 
darling. Ah, mistress, you have never loved 
or you would hate yourself, and despise your- 
self for what you have done. Love! if you 
had known what that word means you couldn’t 
look in my face and stab me to the heart like 
this. God forgive you ! And sure I hope 
He will, for, after all, it is not your fault 
that you were born without a heart. Why, 
Kate, you are crying !” 

“Crying!” said Kate. “I could cry my eyes 
out to think what I have done; but it is not 
my fault ; they egged me on. I knew you 
would fling those two miserable things in my 
face if I did, and I said so; but they would be 
wiser than me and insist on my putting you 
to the proof.” 

“They? Who is they?” 

“No matter. Whoever it was, they will 
gain nothing by it, and you will lose nothing. 
Ah, Griffith ! I am ashamed of myself — and 
so proud of you.” 

“They?” repeated Griffith, suspiciously. 
“Who is they?” 

“What does it matter, so long as it was 
not Me? Are you going to be jealous again? 
Let us talk of you and me, and never mind 
who them is. You have rejected my proposal 
with just scorn; so now let me hear yours, 
98 . 


The Courtship of Kate Peyton. 

for we must agree on something this very 
night. Tell me, now, what can I say or do 
to make you happy?” 

Griffith was sorely puzzled. “Alas, sweet 
Kate,” said he, “I don’t know what you can 
do for me now, except stay single for my 
sake.” 

“I should like nothing better,” replied Kate, 
warmly; “but unfortunately, they won’t let 
me do that. Father Francis will be at me 
to-morrow and insist on my marrying Mr. 
Neville.” 

“But you will refuse.” 

“I would if I could find a good excuse.” 

“Excuse? why, say you don’t love him.” 

“Oh, they won’t allow that for a reason.” 

“Then I am undone,” sighed Griffith. 

“No, you are not; if I could be brought 
to pretend to love somebody else. And really, 
if I don’t quite love you, I like you too well 
to let you be unhappy. Besides, I cannot bear 
to rob you of these unlucky farms ; I think 
there is nothing I would not do rather than 
that. I think — I would rather — do — some- 
thing very silly indeed. But I suppose you 
don’t want me to do that now? Why don’t 
you answer me? Why don’t you say some- 
thing? Are you drunk sir, as they pretend? 
or are you asleep? Oh, I can’t speak any 
plainer; this is intolerable. Mr. Gaunt, I am 
going to shut the window.” 

Griffith got alarmed, and it sharpened his 

L.cfC. 


Charles Reade. 


wits. “Kate, Kate !” he cried, “what do you 
mean? Am I in a dream? Would you marry 
poor me after all?” 

“How on earth can I tell you till I am 
asked?” inquired Kate, with an air of child- 
like innocence, and inspecting the stars at- 
tentively. 

“Kate, will you. marry me?” said Griffith, 
all in a flutter. 

“Of course I will — if you will let me,” re- 
plied Kate, coolly, but rather tenderly, too. 

Griffith burst into raptures. 'Kate listened 
to them with a complacent smile, then deliv- 
ered herself after this fashion: “You have 
very little to thank me for, dear Griffith. I 
don’t exactly downright love you, but I could 
not rob you of those unlucky farms, and you 
refuse to take them back any way but this ; 
so what can I do? And then, for all I don’t 
love you, I find I am always unhappy if you 
are unhappy, and happy when you are happy; 
so it comes pretty much to the same thing. 
I declare I am sick of giving you pain, and a 
little sick of crying in consequence. There, I 
have cried more in the last fortnight than in 
all my life before, and you know nothing spoils 
one’s beauty like crying. And then you are so 
good, and kind, and true, and brave ; and every- 
body is so unjust and so unkind to you, papa 
and all. You were quite in the right about the 
duel, dear. He is an impudent puppy; and I 
threw dust in your eyes, and made you own 
100 


The Courtship of Kate Peyton. 


you were in the wrong, and it was a great 
shame of me, but it was because I liked you 
best. I could take liberties with you , dear. 
And you are wounded for me, and now I have 
disinherited you. Oh, I can’t bear it, and I 
won’t. My heart yearns for you — bleeds for 
you. I would rather die than you should be 
unhappy; I would rather follow you in rags 
round the world than marry a prince and make 
you wretched. Yes, dear, I am yours. Make 
me your wife, and then some day, I dare say, 
I shall love you as I ought.” 

She had never showed her heart to him like 
this before, and now it overpowered him. So, 
being also a little under vinous influence, he 
stammered out something, and then fairly 
blubbered for joy. Then what does Kate do 
but cry for company. 

Presently, to her surprise, he was half way 
up the turret, coming to her. 

“Oh, take care ! take care !” she cried. 
“You’ll break your neck.” 

“Nay,” cried he, “I must come at you, if I 
die for it.” 

The turret was ornamented from top to bot- 
tom with short ledges consisting of half brick. 
This ledge, shallow as it was, gave a slight 
foothold, insufficient in itself ; but he grasped 
the strong branches of the ivy with a powerful 
hand, and so between the two contrived to get 
up and hang himself out close to her. 

“Sweet mistress,” said he, “put out your 
1C1 


Charles Reade, 


hand to me, for I can’t take it against your will 
this time. I have got but one arm.” 

But this she declined. “No, no,” said she, 
“you do nothing but torment and terrify me — 
there.” And so gave it him ; and he mumbled 
it. 

This last feat won her quite. She thought 
no other man could have got to her there with 
two arms, and Griffith had done it with one. 
She said to herself, “How he loves me ! — more 
than his own neck.” And then she thought, 
“I shall be wife to a strong man; that is one 
comfort.” 

In this softened mood she asked him de- 
murely would he take a friend’s advice. 

“If that friend is you, ay.” 

“Then,” said she, “I’ll do a downright 
brazen thing, now my hand is in. I declare 
I’ll tell you how to secure me. You make me 
plight my troth with you this minute, and ex- 
change rings with you, whether I like or not ; 
engage my honor in this foolish business, and 
if you do that, I really do think you will have 
me in spite of them all. But there — la ! — am 
I worth all this trouble?” 

Griffith did not share this chilling doubt. 
He poured forth his gratitude, and then told 
her he had got his mother’s ring in his pocket. 
“I meant to ask you to wear it,” said lie. 

“And why didn’t you?” 

“Because you became an heiress all of a sud- 
den.” 


102 


The Courtship of Kate Peyton. 

“Well, what signifies which of us has the 
dross, so there is enough for both ?” 

“That is true,” said Griffith, approving his 
own sentiment, but not recognizing his own 
words. “Here’s my mother’s ring on my little 
finger, sweet mistress. But I must ask you to 
draw it off, for I have but one hand.” 

Kate made a wry face. “Well, that is my 
fault,” said she, “or I would not take it from 
you so.” 

She drew off his ring, and put it on her 
finger. Then she gave him her largest ring, 
and had to put it on his little finger for him. 

“You are making a very forward girl of me,” 
said she, pouting exquisitely. 

He kissed her hand while she was doing it. 

“Don’t you be so silly,” said she ; “and, you 
horrid creature, how you smell of wine ! The 
bullet, please.” 

“The bullet !” exclaimed Griffith. “What 
bullet?” 

“The bullet. The one you were wounded 
with for my sake. I am told you put it in 
your pocket ; and I see something bulge in your 
waistcoat. That bullet belongs to me now.” 

“I think you are a witch,” said he. “I do 
carry it about next my heart. Take it out of 
my waistcoat, if you will be so good.” 

She blushed and declined, and with the re- 
fusal on her very lips, fished it out with her 
taper fingers. She eyed it with a sort of tender 
horror. The sight of it made her feel faint a 

103 


Charles Reade. 


moment. She told him so, and that she would 
keep it to her dying day. Presently her deli- 
cate finger found something was written on it. 
She did not ask him what it was, but withdrew, 
and examined it by her candle. Griffith had 
engraved it with these words : 

“I LOVE KATE.” 

He looked through the window and saw her 
examining it by the candle. As she read the 
inscription her face, glorified by the light, as- 
sumed a celestial tenderness he had never seen 
it wear before. 

She came back and leaned eloquently out as 
if she would fly to him. “Ah, Griffith ! Grif- 
fith !” she murmured, and somehow or other 
their lips met, in spite of all the difficulties, and 
grew together in a long and tender embrace. 

It was the first time that she had ever given 
him more than her hand to kiss, and the rap- 
ture repaid him for all. 

But as soon as she had made this great ad- 
vance, virginal instinct suggested a proportion- 
ate retreat. 

“You must go to bed,” she said, austerely; 
“you will catch your death of cold out here.” 

He remonstrated; she insisted. He held 
out; she smiled sweetly in his face, and shut 
the window in it pretty sharply, and disap- 
peared. He went disconsolately down his ivy 
ladder. As soon as he was at the bottom, she 
104 


The Courtship of Kate Peyton. 

opened the window again, and asked him de- 
murely if he would do something to oblige her. 

He replied like a lover ; he was ready to be 
cut in pieces, drawn asunder with wild horses, 
and so on. 

“Oh, I know you would do anything stupid 
for me,” said she; “but will you do something 
clever for a poor girl that is in a fright at what 
she is going to do for you?” 

“Give your orders, mistress,” said Griffith, 
“and don’t talk to me of obliging you. I feel 
quite ashamed to hear you talk so — to-night 
especially.” 

“Well, then,” said Kate, “first and fore- 
most, I want you to throw yourself on Father 
Francis’s neck.” 

“I’ll throw myself on Father Francis’s 
neck,” said Griffith, stoutly. “Is that all?” 

“No, nor half.. Once upon his neck, you 
must say something. Then I had better settle 
the very words, or perhaps you will make a 
mess of it. Say after me now: Oh, Father 
Francis, ’tis to you I owe her.” 

“Oh, Father Francis, ’tis to you I owe her.” 

“You and I are friends for life.” 

“You and I are friends for life.” 

“And, mind, there is always a bed in our 
home for you, and a plate at our table, and a 
right welcome, come when you will.” 

Griffith repeated this line correctly, but 
when requested to say the whole, broke down. 
Kate had to repeat the oration a dozen times; 
105 


Charles Reade. 


and he said it after her like a Sunday-school 
scholar, till he had it pat. 

The task achieved, he inquired of her what 
Father Francis was to say in reply. 

At this question Kate showed considerable 
alarm. 

“Gracious heavens !” she cried, “you must 
not stop talking to him; he will turn you in- 
side out, and I shall be undone. Nay, you 
must gabble these words out, and then run 
away as hard as you can gallop.” 

“But is it true?” asked Griffith, “Is he so 
much my friend?” 

“Hum !” said Kate, “it is quite true, and he 
is not at all your friend. There, don’t you 
puzzle yourself, and pester me ; but do as you 
are bid, or we are both undone.” 

Quelled by a menace so mysterious, Griffith 
promised blind obedience; and Kate thanked 
him, and bade him good-night, and ordered 
him peremptorily to bed. 

He went. 

She beckoned him back. 

He came. 

She leaned out, and inquired in a soft, de- 
licious whisper, as follows : “Are you happy, 
dearest ?” 

“Ay, Kate, the happiest of the happy.” 

* “Then so am I,” she murmured. 

And now she slowly closed the window, and 
gradually retired from the eyes of her en- 
raptured lover. 


106 


Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 



The Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 


VERY HARD CASH. CHAPTER XXXVI. 

( Alfred Hardie has discovered that his 
father, a banker, has misappropriated £14,000, 
which had been intrusted to him by Captain 
Dodd, the father of Alfred's fiancee. Alfred 
accuses his father. The latter, to save him- 
self, determines to have his son shut up in an 
insane asylum.) 

The note Alfred Hardie received on the 10th 
of April was from Peggy Black. The letters 
were well formed, for she had been educated 
at the national school ; but the style was not 
upon a par. 

“Mr. Alfred, Sir. — Margaret Black sends 
her respects, and if you want to know the 
truth about the money I can tell you all and 
where it is at this present time. Sir, I am now 
in situation at Silverton Grove House, about 
a furlong from the station ; and, if you will be 
so good to call there and ask for Margaret, I 
will tell you where it is, which I mean the 
£14,000; for it is a sin the young lady should 
be beguiled of her own. Only you must please 
come this evening, or else to-morrow before 
109 


Charles' Reade. 


ten o’clock, by reason my mistress and me we 
are going up to London that day early, and she 
talk of taking me abroad along with her. I 
remain, sir, 

“Yours respectfully to command. 

“Margaret Black. 

“If you please, sir, not to show this letter on 
no account.” 

Alfred read this twice over, and felt a con- 
temptuous repugnance toward the writer, a 
cashiered servant, who offered to tell the truth 
out of spite, having easily resisted every 
worthy motive. Indeed, I think he would have 
perhaps dismissed the subject into the fire, but 
for a strange circumstance that had occurred 
to him this very afternoon; but I had no op- 
portunity to relate it till now. Well, just as 
he was going to dress for dinner, he received 
a visit from Dr. Wycherley, a gentleman he 
scarcely knew by name. Dr. Wycherley in- 
quired after his kephalagia; Alfred stared 
and told him it was much the same; troubled 
him occasionally. 

“And your insomnia.” 

“I don’t know the word: have you any au- 
thority for it?” 

Dr. Wycherley smiled with a sort of benevo- 
lent superiority that galled his patient, and 
proceeded to inquire after his nightly visions 
and voices. But at this Alfred looked grave 
as well as surprised and vexed. He was on his 
110 


Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 


guard now, and asked himself seriously what 
was the meaning of all this, and could his 
father have been so mad as to talk over his 
own shame with this stranger : he made no 
reply whatever. 

Dr. Wycherley’s curiosity was not of a very 
ardent kind : for he was* one of those who first 
form an opinion, and then collect the materials 
of one; and a very little fact goes a long way 
with such minds. So, when he got no an- 
swer about the nocturnal visions and voices, 
he glided calmly on to another matter. “By 
the by, that £14,000 !” 

Alfred started ; and then eyed him keenly. 
“What £14,000 ?” 

“The fabulous sum you labor under the im- 
pression of your father having been guilty of 
clandestinely appropriating.” 

This was too much for Alfred’s patience. 
“I don’t know who you are, sir,” said he; “I 
never exchanged but three words in my life 
with you, and do you suppose I will talk to a 
stranger on family matters of so delicate a 
kind as this ? I begin to think you have in- 
truded yourself on me simply to gratify an 
impertinent curiosity.” 

“The hypothesis is at variance with my es- 
tablished character,” replied the oleaginous 
one. “Do me the justice to believe in the ne- 
cessity of this investigation, and that it is one 
of a most friendly character.” 

“Then I decline the double nuisance; your 

111 


Charles Reade. 


curiosity and your friendship ! take them both 
out of my room, sir, or I shall turn them both 
out by one pair of shoulders.” 

“You shall smart for this,” said the doctor, 
driven to plain English by anger, that great 
solvent of circumlocution with which Nature 
has mercifully supplied us; he made to the 
door, opened it, and said in considerable excite- 
ment to some one outside, “Excited ! — Very !” 

Now Dr. Pleonast had so sooner been con- 
verted to the vernacular, and disappeared, than 
another stranger entered the room; he had 
evidently been lurking in the passage ; it was a 
man of smallish stature, singularly gaunt, 
angular, and haggard, but dressed in a spruce 
suit of black, tight, new, and glossy. In short, 
he looked like Romeo’s apothecary gone to 
Stultz with the money. He fluttered in with 
pale cheek and apprehensive body, saying hur- 
riedly, “Now, my dear sir, be calm; pray be 
calm : I have come down all the way from 
London to see you, and I am sure you won’t 
make me lose my journey; will you, now?” 

“And pray who asked you to come all the 
way from London, sir?” 

“A person to whom jour health is very 
dear.” 

“Oh, indeed; so I have secret friends, have 
I? Well, you may tell my secret, underhand 
friends, I never was better in my life.” 

“I am truly glad to hear it,” said the little 
man : “let me introduce myself, as Dr. Wy- 
112 


Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 


cherley forgot to do it.” And he handed Al- 
fred a card on which his name and profession 
were written. 

“Well, Mr. Speers,” said Alfred, “I have 
only a moment to give you, for I must dress 
for dinner. What do you want?” 

“I come, sir, in hopes of convincing your 
friends you are not so very ill ; not incurable. 
Why your eye is steady, your complexion good ; 
a little high with the excitement of this con- 
versation ; but, if we can only get over this 
little delusion, all will be well.” 

“What little delusion?” 

“About the £14,000, you know.” 

“What £14,000? I have not mentioned 
£14,000 to you, have I ?” 

“No, sir; you seem to shun it like poison; 
that is the worst of it; you talk about it to 
others fast enough ; but to Dr. Wycherley and 
myself, who could cure you of it, you would 
hide all about it, if you could.” 

At this Alfred rose and put his hands in his 
pockets, and looked down grimly on his in- 
quisitor. “Mr. Speers,” said he, “you had bet- 
ter go. There is no credit to be gained by 
throwing so small an apothecary as you out 
of that window ; and you won’t find it pleasant 
either; for, if you provoke me to it, I shall 
not stand upon ceremony; I shan’t open the 
window first, as I should for Dr. What’s his 
confounded name.” 

At these suggestive words, spoken with 

113 


Charles Reade. 


suppressed ire and flashing eyes, Speers scut- 
tled to the door crabwise, holding the young 
lion in check, conventionally; to wit, with an 
eye as valiant as a sheep’s; and a joyful 
apothecary was he when he found himself safe 
outside the house and beside Dr. Wycherley, 
who was waiting for him. 

Alfred soon cooled, and began to laugh at his 
own anger and the unbounded impudence of 
his visitors ; but, on the other hand, it struck 
him as a grave circumstance that so able a 
man as his father should stir muddy water — 
should go and talk to these strangers about 
the money be had misappropriated. He 
puzzled himself all the time he was dressing; 
and not to trouble the reader with all the con- 
jectures that passed through his mind, he con- 
cluded at last that Mr. Hardie must feel very 
strong, very sure there was no evidence against 
him but his son’s, or he would not take the 
eighth commandment by the horns like this. 

“Injustice carries it with a high hand,” 
thought Alfred, with a sigh. He was not the 
youth to imitate his father’s shamelessness: 
so he locked this last incident in his own 
breast; did not even. mention it to Julia. 

But now, on reading Peggy’s note, his war- 
like instincts awoke, and, though he despised 
his correspondent and her motives, he could 
not let such a chance pass of defeating brazen 
injustice. It was unfortunate and awkward to 
have to go to Silverton on his wedding morn- 

114 


Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 


ing; but after all, there was plenty of time. 
He packed up his things at once for the wed- 
ding tour, and in the morning took them with 
him in the fly to Silverton ; his plan was to 
come back direct to Albion Villa: so he went 
to Silverton Grove full dressed, all ready for 
the wedding. 

On the road our ardent youth arranged in 
his head a noble scheme. He would bring 
Peggy Black home with him, compensating her 
liberally for the place she would thereby lose : 
would confront her privately with his father, 
and convince him it was to his interest to re- 
store the Dodds their money with a good grace, 
take the £5,000 he had already offered, and 
countenance the wedding by letting Jane be 
present at it. It was hard to do all this in the 
time, but well worth trying for, and not impos- 
sible ; a two-horse fly is not a slow conveyance, 
and he offered the man a guinea to drive fast; 
so that it was not nine o’clock when they 
reached Silverton Grove House, a place Al- 
fred had never heard of ; this, however, I may 
observe, was no wonder ; for it had not borne 
that name a twelvemonth. 

It was a large square mansion of red brick, 
with stone facings and corners, and with balus- 
trades that hid the garret windows. It stood 
in its own grounds, and the entrance was 
through handsome iron gates, one of which 
was wide open to admit people on foot or 
horseback. The flyman got down and tried to 

115 


Charles Reade. 


open the other, but could not manage it. 
“There, don’t waste time,” said Alfred, im- 
patiently, “let me out.” 

He found a notice under the bell, “Ring and 
enter.” He rang accordingly, and at the clang 
the hall door opened as if he had pulled a 
porter along with the bell, and a gray-haired 
servant out of livery stood on the steps to re- 
ceive him. Alfred hurried across the plot, 
which was trimmed as neatly as a college 
green, and asked the servant if he could see 
Margaret Black. 

“Margaret Black?” said the man, doubtfully: 
“Til inquire, sir. Please to follow me.” 

They entered a handsome hall, with antlers 
and armor: from this a double staircase led up 
to a landing with folding-doors in the center 
of it; one of these doors was wide open like 
the iron gate outside. The servant showed 
Alfred up the left-hand staircase, through the 
open door, into a spacious drawing-room, 
handsomely though not gayly furnished and 
decorated ; but a little darkened by Venetian 
blinds. 

The old servant walked gravely on and on, 
till Alfred began to think he would butt the 
wall ; but he put his hand out and opened a 
door that might very well escape a stranger’s 
notice ; for it was covered with looking-glass, 
and matched another narrow mirror in shape 
and size; this door led into a very long room, 
as plain and even sordid as the drawing-room 
116 


Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 


was inviting; the unpapered walls were a cold 
drab, and wanted washing; there was a thick 
cobweb up in one corner, and from the ceiling 
hung the tail of another, which the house- 
maid’s broom had scotched, not killed; that 
side of the room they enered by was oil books. 
The servant said, “Stay here a moment, sir, 
and I’ll send her to you.” With this he re- 
tired into the drawing-room, closing the door 
softly after him ; once closed it became invisi- 
ble; it fitted like wax, and left nothing to be 
seen but books ; not even a knob. It shut to with 
that gentle but clean click which a spring bolt, 
however polished and oiled and gently closed, 
will emit. Altogether it was enough to give 
some people a turn. But Alfred’s nerves were 
not to be affected by trifles ; he put his hands 
in his pockets and walked up and down the 
room, quietly enough at first, but by-and-by 
uneasily. “Confound her for wasting my 
time,” thought he ; “why doesn’t she come ?” 

Then, as he had learned to pick up the frag- 
ments of time, and hated dawdling, he went to 
take a book from the shelves. 

He found it was a piece of iron, admirably 
painted : it chilled his hand with its un- 
expected coldness; and all the books on and 
about the door were iron and chilly. 

“Well,” thought he, “this is the first dummy 
ever took me in. What a fool a man must be ! 
Why, he could have bought books with ideas 
in them for the price of these impostors.” 

117 


Charles Reade. 


Still Peggy did not come. So he went to a 
door opposite and at right angles to the fur- 
thest window, meaning to open it and inquire 
after her; lo and behold he found this was a 
knob without a door. There had been a door, 
but it was locked up. The only available door 
on that side had a key-hole, but no latch nor 
handle. 

Alfred was a prisoner. 

He no sooner found this out than he began 
to hammer on the door with his fists and call 
out. 

This had a good effect, for he heard a wo- 
man’s dress come rustling; a key was inserted, 
and the door opened. But, instead of Peggy, 
it was a tall well-formed woman of thirty, 
with dark gray eyes and straightish eyebrows, 
massive and black as jet. She was dressed 
quietly, but like a lady. Mrs. Archbold, for 
that was her name, cast on Alfred one of those 
swift, all-devouring glances, with which her 
sex contrive to take in the features, character, 
and dress of a person from head to foot, and 
smiled most graciously on him, revealing a fine 
white set of teeth. She begged him to take a 
seat; and sat down herself. She had left the 
door ajar. 

“I came to see Margaret Black.” said Al- 
fred. 

“Margaret Black? There is no such person 
here,” was the quiet reply. 

“What, has she gone away so early as this ?” 

118 


Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 


Mrs. Archbold smiled, and said, soothingly, 
“Are you sure she ever existed, except in your 
imagination ?” 

Alfred laughed at this, and showed her 
Peggy's letter. She ran her eye over it, and 
returned it him with a smile of a different 
kind, half-pitying, half-cynical. But presently 
resuming her former manner, “I remember 
now/ said she, in dulcet tones : “The anxiety 
you are laboring under is about a large sum of 
money, is it not?” 

“What, can you give me any information 
about it?” said he, surprised. 

“I think we can render you great service 
in the matter, infinite service, Mr. Hardie,” 
was the reply in a voice of very honey. 

Alfred was amazed at this. “You say you 
don’t know Peggy ! And yet you seem to know 
me. I never saw you in my life before, 
madam ; what on earth is the meaning* of all 
this?” 

“Calm yourself,” said Mrs. Archbold, laying 
a white and finely molded hand upon his arm, 
“there is no wonder nor mystery in the mat- 
ter: you were expected .” 

The color rushed into Alfred’s face, and he 
started to his feet ; some vague instinct told 
him to be gone from this place. 

The lady fixed her eyes on him, put her hand 
to a gold chain that was round her neck, and 
drew out of her white bosom, not a locket, nor 
a key, but an ivory whistle; keeping her eyes 
119 


Charles Reade. 


steadily fixed on Alfred, she breathed softly 
into the whistle. Then two men stepped 
quietly in at the door; one was a short, stout 
snob, with great red whiskers, the other a wiry 
gentleman with iron-gray hair. The latter 
spoke to Alfred, and began to coax him. If 
Mrs. Archbold was honey, this personage was 
treacle. “Be calm, my dear young gentleman, 
don’t agitate yourself. You have been sent 
here for your good ; and that you may be cured, 
and so restored to society, and to your anxious 
and affectionate friends.” 

“What are you talking about? what do you 
mean?” cried Alfred; “are you mad?” 

“No, we are not,” said the short snob, with 
a coarse laugh. 

“Have done with this fooling, then,” said 
Alfred, sharply; “the person I came to see is 
not here ; good morning.” 

The short man instantly stepped to the door 
and put his back to it. The other said calmly, 
“No, Mr. Hardie, you can not leave the house 
at present.” 

“Can’t I? Why not, pray?” said Alfred, 
drawing his breath hard ; and his eyes began 
to glitter dangerously. 

“We are responsible for your safety; we 
have force at hand if necessary; pray do not 
compel us to summon it.” 

“Why, where in God’s name, am I ?” said 
Alfred, panting now; “is this a prison?” 

“No, no,” said Mrs. Archbold, soothingly, 

120 


Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 


“it is a place where you will be cured of your 
headaches and your delusions, and subjected to 
no unnecessary pain nor restraint.” 

“Oh, bother !” said the short snob, brutally. 
“Why make two bites of a cherry? You are 
in my asylum, young gentleman, and a devilish 
lucky thing for you.” 

At this fatal word “asylum” Alfred uttered a 
cry of horror and despair, and his eyes roved 
wildly around the room in search of escape. 
But the windows of the room, though outside 
the house they seemed to come as low as those 
of the drawing-room, were partly bricked up 
within, and made just too high to be reached 
without a chair. And his captors read that 
wild glance directly, and the doctor whipped 
one chair away, while Mrs. Archbold, with 
more tact, sat quietly down on the other. 
They all three blew their whistles shrilly. 

Alfred uttered an oath and rushed at the 
door ; but heard heavy feet running on stone 
passages toward the whistles, and felt he had 
no chance out that way : his dilating eye fell 
upon the handle of the old defunct door ; he 
made a high leap, came down with his left 
foot on its knob of brass, and, though, of. 
course he could not stand on it, contrived to 
spring from it slap at the window — Mrs. Arch- 
bold screamed — he broke the glass with his 
shoulder, and tore and kicked the woodwork, 
and squeezed through on to a stone ledge out- 
side, and stood there bleeding and panting, 
121 


r 


Charles Reade. 


just as half a dozen keepers burst into the 
room at his back. He was more than twenty 
feet from the ground ; to leap down was death 
or mutilation ; he saw the flyman driving away. 
He yelled to him, “Hy ! hy ! stop ! stop !” 
The flyman stopped and looked round. But 
soon as he saw who it was, he just grinned. Al- 
fred could see his hideous grin ; and there was 
the rattle of chairs being brought to the win- 
dow, and men were mounting softly to secure 
him ; a coarse hand stole toward his ankle ; he 
took a swift step and sprang desperately on 
to the next ledge : — it was an old manor house, 
and these ledges were nearly a foot broad : — 
from this one he bounded to the next, and then 
to a third, the last but one on this side the 
building; the corner ledge was but half the 
size, and offered no safe footing; but close 
to it he saw the outside leaves of a tree. That 
tree, then, must grow close to the corner ; 
could he but get round to it he might yet reach 
the ground whole. Urged by that terror of a 
mad-house which is natural to a sane man, 
and in England is fed by occasional dis^- 
closures, and the general suspicion they excite, 
he leaped on to a piece of stone no bigger than 
one’s hat, and then whirled himself round in- 
to the tree, all eyes to see and claws to grasp. 

It was a weeping ash, he could get hold of 
nothing but soft yielding slivers that went 
through his fingers, Sand so down with him like 
a bulrush, and souse he went with his hands 
122 


Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 


full of green leaves over head and ears into the 
water of an enormous iron tank that fed the 
baths. 

The heavy plunge, the sudden cold water, 
the instant darkness, were appalling: yet, like 
the fox among the hounds, the gallant young 
gentleman did not lose heart nor give tongue. 
He came up gurgling and gasping, and swim- 
ning for his life in manly science ; he swam 
round and round the edge of the huge tank 
trying in vain to get a hold upon its cold rusty 
walls. He heard whistles and voices about; 
they came faint to him where he was, but he 
knew they could not be very far off. 

Life is sweet. It flashed across him how, 
a few years before, a university man of great 
promise had perished miserably in a tank on 
some Swiss mountain, a tank placed for the 
comfort of travelers. He lifted his eyes to 
Heaven in despair, and gave one great sob. 

Then he turned upon his back and floated ; 
but he was obliged to paddle with his hands 
a little to keep up. 

A window opened a few feet above him, and 
a face peered out between the bars. 

Then he gave all up for lost, and looked to 
hear a voice denounce him: but no the livid 
face and staring eyes at the window took no 
notice of him ; it was a maniac, whose eyes, 
bereft of reason, conveyed no images to the 
sentient brain ; only by some half vegetable 
instinct this darkened man was turning toward 
123 


Charles Reade. 


the morning sun, and staring it full in the 
face; Alfred saw the rays strike and sparkle 
on those glassy orbs, and fire them; yet they 
never so much as winked. He was appalled 
yet fascinated by this weird sight; could not 
take his eyes off it, and shuddered at it in 
the very water. With such creatures as that 
he must be confined, or die miserably like a 
mouse in a basin of water. 

He hesitated between two horrors. 

Presently his foot struck something, and he 
found it was a large pipe that entered the tank 
to the distance of about a foot. This pipe was 
not more than three feet under water, and 
Alfred soon contrived to get upon it and rest 
his fingers upon the iron edge of the tank. 
The position was painful : yet so he determined 
to remain till night; and then, if possible, steal 
away. Every faculty of mind and body was 
strung up to defend himself against the 
wretches who had entrapped him. 

• He had not been long in this position when 
voices approached, and next the shadow of a 
ladder moved across the wall toward him. The 
keepers were going to search his pitiable hid- 
ing-place. They knew, what he did not, that 
there was no outlet from the premises ; so 
now, having hunted every other corner and 
cranny, they came by what is called the ex- 
haustive process of reasoning to this tank ; 
and, when they got near it, something in the 
appearance of the tree caught the gardener’s 

124 


Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 


quick eye. Alfred quaking heard him say, 
“Look here ! He is not far from this.” 

Another voice said, “Then the Lord have 
mercy on him ; why there’s seven foot of 
water; I measured it last night.” 

At this Alfred was conscious of a movement 
and a murmur, that proved humanity was not 
extinct; and the ladder was fixed close to the 
tank, and feet came hastily up it. 

Alfred despaired. 

But, as usual with spirits so quick witted 
and resolute, it was but for a moment. “One 
man in his time plays many animals ;” he 
caught at the words he had heard, and played 
the game the jackal desperate- plays in India, 
the fox in England, the elephant in Ceylon ; he 
feigned death ; filled his mouth with water, 
floated on his back paddling imperceptibly, 
and half closed his eyes. 

He was rewarded by a loud shout of dismay 
just above his head, and very soon another 
ladder was placed on the other side, and with 
ropes and hands he was drawn out and carried 
down the ladder; he took this opportunity to 
discharge the water from his mouth ; on which 
a coarse voice said, “Look there ! His troubles 
are at an end.” 

However, they laid him on the grass, and 
sent for the doctor ; then took off his coat, and 
one of them began to feel his heart to see 
whether there was any pulsation left ; he found 
125 


Charles Reade. 


it thumping. “Look out/’ he cried, in some 
alarm, “he’s shamming, Abraham.” 

But before the words were well uttered, Al- 
fred, who was a practiced gymnast, bounded 
off the ground without touching it with his 
hands, and fled like a deer toward the front of 
the house; for he remembered the open iron 
gate; the attendants followed shouting, and 
whistle answered whistle all over the grounds. 
Alfred got safe to the iron gate ; alas ! it had 
been closed at the first whistle twenty minutes 
ago. He turned in rage and desperatTon, and 
the head keeper, a powerful man, was rushing 
incautiously upon him. Alfred instantly 
steadied himself, and with his long arm caught 
the man in full career a left-handed blow like 
the kick of a pony, that laid his cheek open 
and knocked him stupid and staggering; he 
followed it up like lightning with his right, 
and, throwing his whole weight into this 
second blow, sent the staggering man to grass ; 
slipped past another, and, skirting the south 
side of the house, got to the tank again, well 
in advance of his pursuers, seized the ladder, 
carried it to the garden wall, and was actually 
half way up it, and saw the open country and 
liberty, when the ladder was dragged away and 
he fell heavily to the ground, and a keeper 
threw himself bodily on him. Alfred half ex- 
pected this, and drawing up his foot in time, 
dashed it furiously in the coming face, actually 
knocking the man backward; another kneeled 
126 


Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 


on his chest; Alfred caught him by the throat 
so felly that he lost all power, and they rolled 
over and over together, and Alfred got clear 
and ran for it again, and got on the middle of 
the lawn, and hallooed to the house: “Hy ! hy ! 
Are there any more sane men imprisoned 
there ? come out, and fight for your lives !” 
Instantly the open windows were filled with 
white faces, some grinning, some exulting, all 
greatly excited; and a hideous uproar shook 
the whole place — for the poor souls were all 
sane in their own opinion — and the whole 
force of attendants, two of them bleeding pro- 
fusely from his blows made a cordon and ap- 
proached him ; but he was too cunning to wait 
to be fairly surrounded; he made his rush at 
an underkeeper, feinted at his head, caught 
him a heavy blow in the pit of the stomach, 
doubled him up in a moment, and off again, 
leaving the man on his knees vomiting and 
groaning. Several mild maniacs ran out in 
vast agitation and, to curry favor, offered to 
help catch him. Vast was their zeal. But 
when it came to the point they only danced 
wildly about, and cried, “Stop him! for God’s 
sake stop him ! he's ill, dreadfully ill ; poor 
wretch! knock out his brains!” And, when- 
ever he came near them, away they ran whin- 
ing like kicked curs. 

Mrs. Archbold, looking out at a window, ad- 
vised them all to let him alone, and she would 
come out and persuade him. But they would 
127 


Charles Reade. 


not be advised ; they chased him about the 
lawn ; but so swift of foot was he, and so long 
in the reach that no one of them could stop 
him, nor indeed come near him, without get- 
ting a facer that came like a Hash of lightning. 

At last, however, they got so well round 
him, he saw his chance was gone : he took off 
his hat to Mrs. Archbold at the window, and 
said quietly, “I surrender to you , madam.” 

At these words they rushed on him rashly; 
on this he planted two blows right and left, 
swift as a cat attacked by dogs ; administered 
two fearful black eyes, and instantly folded his 
arms, saying haughtily, “It was to the lady I 
yielded, not to you fellows.” 

They seized him, shook their fists in his face, 
cursed him, and pinned him; he was quite 
passive ; they handcuffed him, and drove him 
before them, shoving him every now and then 
roughly by the shoulders. He made no re- 
sistance, spoke no word. They took him to 
the strong-room, and manacled his ankles to- 
gether with an iron hobble, and then strapped 
them to the bedposts, and fastened his body 
down by broad bands of ticking with leathern 
straps at the ends; and so left him more help- 
less than a swaddled infant. The hurry and 
excitement of defense were over, and a cold 
stupor of misery came down and sat like lead 
on him. He lay mute as death in his gloomy 
cell, a tomb within a living tomb. And, as he 
lay, deeper horror grew and grew in his dilat- 
128 


Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 


in g eyes ; gusts of rage' swept over him, shook 
him, and passed ; then gusts of despairing ten- 
derness ; all came and went, but his bonds. 
What would his Julia think? If he could only 
let her know ! At this thought he called, he 
shouted, he begged for a messenger ; there was 
no reply. The cry of a dangerous lunatic from 
the strong-room was less heeded here than a 
bark from any dog-kennel in Christendom. 
“This is my father’s doing!” he said. ‘‘Curse 
him ! Curse him ! Curse him !” and his brain 
seemed on fire, his temples throbbed; he vowed 
to God to be revenged on his father. 

Then he writhed at his own meanness in 
coming to visit a servant, and his folly in be- 
ing caught by so shallow an artifice. He 
groaned aloud. The clock in the hall struck 
ten. There was just time to get back if they 
would lend him a conveyance. He shouted, 
he screamed, he prayed. He offered terms 
humbly, piteously ; he would forgive his father, 
forgive them all ; he would say no more about 
the money ; would do anything, consent to any- 
thing, if they would only let him keep faith 
with his Julia; they had better consent, and 
not provoke his vengeance. “Have mercy on 
me !” he cried. “Don’t make me insult her I 
love. They will all be waiting for me. It is 
my wedding day ; you can’t have known it is 
my wedding day; fiends, monsters, I tell you 
it is my wedding day. Oil pray send the lady 
to me; she can’t be all stone, and my misery 
129 


Charles Reade. 


might melt a stone.” He listened for an an- 
swer, he prayed for an answer. There was 
none. Once in a mad house, the sanest man 
is mad, however interested and bare faced 
the motive of the relative who has broug-ht 
two of the most venal class upon the earth to 
sign away his wits behind his back ; and, once 
hobbled and strapped, he is a dangerous 
maniac, for just so many days, weeks, or years, 
as the hobbles, handcuffs and jacket happen to 
be left upon him by inhumanity, economy, or 
simple carelessness. Poor Alfred’s cries and 
prayers were heard, but no more noticed than 
the night howl of a wolf on some distant 
mountain. All was sullen silence but the grat- 
ing tongue of the clock, which told the victim 
of a legislature’s shallowness and a father’s 
avarice that Time, deaf to his woe, as were 
the walls, the men, the women and the cutting 
bands, was stealing away with iron finger Ins 
last chances of meeting his beloved at the 
altar. 

He closed his eyes, and saw her lovelier than 
ever, dressed all in white, waiting for him with 
sweet concern in that peerless face. “Julia! 
Julia!” he cried, with a loud heart-broken cry. 
The half hour struck. At that he struggled, 
he writhed, he bounded ; he made the very 
room shake, and lacerated his flesh; but that 
was all. No answer. No motion. No help. 
No hope. 

The perspiration rolled down his steaming 

130 


Incarceration of Alfred Hardie. 


body. The tears burst from his young eyes 
and ran down his cheeks. He sobbed, and 
sobbing almost choked, so tight were his linen 
bands upon his bursting bosom. 

He lay still exhausted. 

The clock ticked harshly on : the rest was 
silence. With this miserable exception; ever 
and anon the victim’s jammed body shuddered 
so terribly it shook and rattled the iron bed- 
stead, and told of the storm within, the agony 
of the racked and all-foreboding soul. 

For then rolled over that young head hours 
of mortal anguish that no tongue of man can 
utter, nor pen can shadow. Chained sane 
among the mad; on his wedding day, expect- 
ing with tied hands the sinister acts of the 
soul murderers who had the power to make 
their lie a truth ! We can paint the body 
writhing vainly against its unjust bonds; but 
who can paint the loathing, agonized soul in 
a mental situation so ghastly? For my part I 
feel it in my heart of hearts, but am impotent 
to convey it to others; impotent, impotent. 

Pray think of it for yourselves, men and 
women, if you have not sworn never to think 
over a novel. Think of it, for your own sakes ; 
Alfred’s turn to-day, it may be yours to-mor- 
row. 


131 





The Rival Picnics. 


The Rival Picnics. 


CHRISTIE JOHNSTONE. CHAPTER X. 

( Lord Ipsden, a rich young nobleman, is 
ifi love with his cousin, Lady Barbara Sinclair . 
Christie Johnstone is a beautiful young fish- 
wife.) 

One day Lady Barbara, being in a cousinly 
humor, expressed a wish to sail in his Lord- 
ship’s yacht, and this hint soon led to a party 
being organized, and a sort of picnic on the 
island of Inch Coombe; his Lordship’s cutter 
being the mode of conveyance to and from 
that spot. 

Now it happened on that very day Jean 
Carnie’s marriage was celebrated on that very 
island by her relations and friends. 

So that we shall introduce our readers to 
the rival picnics. 

We begin with Les gens comme il faut. 

Picnic No. i. 

The servants were employed in putting 
away dishes into hampers. 

There was a calm silence. 

“Hem!” observed Sir Henry Talbot. 

135 


Charles Reade. 

“Eh?” replied the Honorable Tom Hither- 
ington. 

“Mamma,” said Miss Vere, “have you 
brought any work?” 

“No, my dear.” 

“At a picnic,” said Mr. Hitherington, “isn’t 
it the thing for somebody — aw — to do some- 
thing?” 

“Ipsden,” said Lady Barbara, “there is an 
understanding between you and Mr. Hither- 
ington. I condemn you to turn him into Eng- 
lish.” 

“Yes, Lady Barbara ; I’ll tell you he 
means — do you mean anything, Tom?” 

Hitherington. “Can’t anybody guess what 
I mean?” 

Lady Barbara. “Guess first yourself, you 
can’t be suspected of being in the secret.” 

Hither. “What I mean is, that people sing 
a song, or run races, or preach a sermon, or 
do something funny at a picnic — aw — some- 
body gets up and does something.” 

Lady Bar. “Then perhaps Miss V ere, whose 
singing is famous, will have the complaisance 
to sing to us.” 

Miss Vere. “I should be happy, Lady Bar- 
bara, but I have not brought my music.” 

Lady Bar. “O, we are not critical; the 
simplest air, or even a fragment of melody; 
the sea and the sky will be a better accom- 
paniment than Broad wood ever made.” 

Miss V. “I can’t sing a note without book.” 

136 


The Rival Picnics. 


Sir H . Talbot. “Your music is in your 
soul — not at your fingers' ends." 

Lord Ipsden, to Lady Bar. “It is in her 
book, and not in her soul." 

Lady Bar., to Lord Ips. “Then it has 
chosen the better situation of the two." 

Ips. “Miss Vere is to the fine art of music 
what the engrossers are to the black art of 
law; it all filters through them without leav- 
ing any sediment; and so the music of the 
day passes through Miss Vere’s mind, but 
none remains — to stain its virgin snow." He 
bows, she smiles. 

Lady Bar., to herself. “Insolent; and the 
little dunce thinks he is complimenting her." 

Ips. “Perhaps Talbot will come to our res- 
cue — he is a fiddler.” 

Tal. “An amateur of the violin.” 

Ips. “It is all the same thing.” 

Lady Bar. “I wish it may prove so.” 

Miss V. “Beautiful.” 

Mrs. Vere. “Charming." 

Hither. “Superb !” 

Ips. “You are aware that good music is a 
thing to be wedded to immortal verse, shall 
I recite a bit of poetry to match Talbot’s 
strain ?” 

Miss V. “O, yes ! how nice." 

Ips. (rhetorically ) , “A. B. C. D. E. F. G. 

PI. I. J. K. L. M. N. O. P. Q. R. S. T. U. 

V. W. X. Y. Z. Y. X. W. V. U. T. S. O. N. 

M. L. K. J. I. H. G. F. A. M. little p. little t" 

137 


Charles Reade 



138 


The Rival Picnics. 


Lady Bar. “Beautiful ! Superb ! Ipsden ha:; 
been taking lessons on the thinking instru- 
ment.” 

Hither. “He has been perdu amongst vulgar 
people.” 

Tal. “And expects a pupil of Herz to play 
him tunes !” 

Lady Bar. “What are tunes, Sir Henry?” 

Tal. “Something I don’t play, Lady Bar- 
bara.” 

Lady Bar. “I understand you; something 
we ought to like.” 

Ips. “I have a Stradivarius violin at home ; 
it is yours, Talbot, if you can define a tune.” 

Tal. “A tune is — everybody knows what.” 

Lady Bar. “A tune is a tune, that is what 
you meant to say.” 

Tal. “Of course it is.” 

Lady Bar. “Be reasonable, Ipsden; no man 
can do two things at once; how can the pupil 
of Herz condemn a thing and know what it 
means contemporaneously ?” 

Ips. “Is the drinking-song in ‘Der Freis- 
chutz’ a tune?” 

Lady Bar. “It is.” 

Ips. “And the melodies of Handel, are they 
tunes ?” 

Lady Bar. ( pathetically .) “They are! 
They are !” 

Ips. “And the ‘Russian Anthem/ and the 
‘Marseillaise,’ and ‘Ah, Perdona’ ?” 

Tal. “And Yankee Doodle?” 

139 


Charles Reade. 


Lady Bar. “So that Sir Henry, who prided 
himself on his ignorance, has a wide field 
for its dominion.” 

Tal. “All good violin players do like me; 
they prelude, not play tunes.” 

Ips. “Then Heaven be thanked for our blind 
fiddlers. You like syllables of sound in un- 
meaning rotation, and you despise its words, 
its purposes, its narrative feats ; carry out 
your principle, it will show you where you are. 
Buy a dirty palette for a picture, and dream 
the alphabet is a poem.” 

Lady Bar., to herself . “Is this my cousin 
Richard ?” 

Hither . “Mind, Ipsden, you are a man of 
property, and there are such things as com- 
missions de lunatico.” 

Lady Bar. “His defense will be that his 
friends pronounce him insane.” 

Ips. “No; I shall subpoena Talbot’s fiddle, 
cross-examination will get nothing out of that 
but, do, re, mi, fa.” 

Lady Bar. “Yes, it will; fa, mi, re, do.” 

Tal. “Violin, if you please.” 

Lady Bar. “Ask Fiddle’s pardon, directly.” 

Sound of fiddles is heard in the distance. 

Tal. “How lucky for you, there are fiddles 
and tunes, and the natives you are said to 
favor, why not join them?” 

Ips. ( shaking his head solemnly.) “I dread 
to encounter another prelude.” 

140 


The Rival Picnics. 


Hither. “Come, I know you would like; it 
is a wedding party — two sea monsters have 
been united. The sailors and fishermen are 
all blue cloth and wash-leather gloves.” 

Miss V. “He! he!” 

Tal. “The fishwives unite the colors of the 
rainbow — — ” 

Lady Bar. (And we all know how hideous 
they are) — to vulgar, blooming cheeks, staring 
white teeth, and sky-blue eyes.” 

Mrs. V. “How satirical you are, especially 
you, Lady Barbara.” 

Here Lord Ipsden, after a word to Lady 
Barbara, the answer to which did not appear 
to be favorable, rose, gave a little yawn, looked 
steadily at his companions without seeing 
them, and departed without seeming aware 
that he was leaving anybody behind him. 

Hither. “Let us go somewhere where we 
can quiz the natives without being too near 
them.” 

Lady Bar. “I am tired of this unbroken 
solitude, I must go and think to the sea,” 
added she, in a mock soliloquy; and out she 
glided with the same unconscious air as his 
Lordship had worn. 

The others moved off slowly together. 

“Mamma,” said Miss Vere, “I can’t under- 
stand half Barbara Sinclair says.” 

“It is not necessary, my love,” replied mam- 
ma; “she is rather eccentric, and I fear she 
is spoiling Lord Ipsden.” 

141 


Charles Reade. 


'‘Poor Lord Ipsden,” murmured the lovely 
Vere, “he used to be so nice, and do like 
everybody else. Mamma, I shall bring some 
work the next time.” 

“Do, my love.” 

Picnic No. 2. 

In a house, two hundred yards from this 
scene, a merry dance, succeeding a merry 
song, had ended, and they were in the midst 
of an interesting story; Christie Johnstone 
was the narrator. She had found the tale 
in one of the Viscount’s books — it had made 
a great impression on her. 

The rest were listening intently: in a room 
which had lately been all noise, not a sound 
was now to be heard but the narrator’s voice. 

“Aweel, lasses, here are the three wee kists 
set, the lads are to chuse — the ane that chuses 
reicht is to get Porsha, an’ the lave to get the 
bag, and dee baitchelars ; — Flucker Johnstone, 
you that’s sae clever — are ye for gowd, or 
siller, or leed?” 

1st Fishwife. “Gowd for me !” 

2 d ditto. “The white siller’s my taste.” 

Flucker. “Na ! there’s aye some deevelish 
trick in thir lassie’s stories. I shall lie to, till 
the ither lads hae chused ; the mair part 
will put themsels oot, ane will hit it off reicht 
maybe, then I shall gie him a hidin’ an carry 
off the lass. You-hoo !” 

Jean Carnic. “That’s you, Flucker.” 

142 


The Rival Picnics. 

Christie Johnstone. “And div ye really 
think we are gawn to let you see a’ the world 
chuse? Na, lad, ye are putten oot o’ the 
room, like witnesses.” 

Flucker. “Then I’d toss a penny; for gien 
ye trust to luck, she whiles favors ye, but 
gien ye commence to reason and argefy — 
ye’re done !” 

Christie. “The suitors had na your wit, my 
manny, or maybe they had na a penny to toss, 
sae ane chused the gowd ane the siller ; but 
they got an awfu’ affront. The gowd kist had 
just a skull intil ’t, and the siller a deed cuddy’s 
head !” 

Chorus of Females. “He ! he ! he !” 

Ditto of Males. “Haw! haw! haw! haw! 
Ho !” 

Christie. “An’ Porsha puttit the pair of 
gowds to the door. Then came Bassanio, the 
lad fra Veeneece, that Porsha lo’ed in secret. 
Veeneece, lasses, is a wonderful city; the 
streets o’ ’t are water, and the carriages are 
boats — that’s in Chambers’.” 

Flucker. “ Wha are ye making a fool o’ ?” 

Christie. “What’s wrang?” 

Flucker. “Yon’s just as big a lee as ever I 
heerd.” 

The words were scarcely out of his mouth 
ere he had reason to regret them; a severe 
box on the ear was administered by his in- 
dignant sister. Nobody pitied him. 

1-13 


Charles Reade. 


Christie. ‘Til laern ye t’ affront me before 
a’ the company.** 

Jean Carnie. “Suppose it’s a lee, there’s 
nae silver to pay for it, Flucker.” 

Christie . “Jean, I never telt a lee in a’ my 
days.” 

Jean. “There’s ane to begin wi’ then. Go 
ahead, Custy.” 

Christie. “She bade the music play for 
him, for music brightens thoucht ; ony way, . 
he chose the leed kist. Open’st and wasn’t 
there Porsha’s pictur, and a posy, that said : 

‘If you be zvell pleased with this , 

And hold your fortune for your bliss; 
Turn you where your leddy iss, 

And greet her wi ’ a loving ” (Pause) 

“Kess,” roared the company. 

Chorus , led by Flucker. “Hurraih !” 

Christie ( pathetically ). “Flucker, behave!” 

Sandy Liston (drunk). “Hur-raih !” He 
then solemnly reflected. “Na ! but it’s na 
hurraih, decency requires amen first an’ 
hurraih afterwards; here’s kissin plenty, but 
I hear nae word o’ the minister. Ye’ll ob- 
sairve, young woman, that kissin ’s the pro- 
logue to sin, and Pm a decent mon, an’ a 
gray-headed mon, an’ your licht stories are no 
for me; sae if the minister’s no expeckit I 
shall retire — an’ tak my quiet gill my lane.” 

Jean Carnie. “And div ye really think a 

144 


The Rival Picnics. 


decent cummer like Custy wad let the lad 
and lass misbehave thirsels? Na! lad, the 
minister’s at the door, but” (sinking her voice 
to a confidential whisper), “I daurna let him 
in, for fear he’d see ye hae putten the enemy 
in your mooth sae aerly. (That’s Custy’s 
word.)” 

“Jemmy Drysel,” replied Sandy, addressing 
vacancy, for Jemmy was mysteriously at work 
in the kitchen, “ye hae gotten a thoughfu’ 
wife.” (Then, with a strong revulsion of 
feeling.) “Dinna let the blakguurd* in here,” 
cried he, “to spoil the young folk’s sporrt.” 

Christie. “Aweel, lassies, comes a letter to 
Bassanio; he reads it, and turns as pale as 
deeth.” 

A Fishwife. “Gude help us.” 

Christie . “Porsha behooved to ken his 
grief, wha had a better reicht ? ‘Here’s a 
letter, leddy,’ says he, 'the paper’s the boedy 
of my freend, like, and every word in it a 
gaping wound.’ ” 

A Fisherman. “Maircy on us.” 

Christie. “Lad, it was fra puir Antonio, ye 
mind o’ him, lasses. Hech ! the ill luck o’ 
yon man, no a. ship come hame; ane found- 
ered at sea, coming fra Tri-po-lis; the pirates 
scuttled another, an’ ane ran ashore on the 

*At present this is a spondee in England — a 
trochee in Scotland. The pronunciation of this 
important word ought to be fixed, representing, as 
it does, so large a portion of the community in 
both countries. 


145 


Charles Reade. 


Goodwins, near Bright-helrn-stane, that’s in 
England itsel’, I daur say : sae he could na pay 
the three thoosand ducats, an’ Shylock had 
grippit him, an’ sought the pund o’ flesh aff 
the breast o’ him, puir body.” 

Sandy Liston. “He would na be the waur 
o’ a wee bit hiding, yon thundering urang- 
utang; let the man alane, ye cursed old canni- 
bal.” 

Christie. “Poorsha keepit her man but ae 
hoor till they were united, an’ then sent him 
wi’ a puckle o’ her ain siller to Veeneece, and 
Antonio — think o’ that, lassies — pairted on 
their wedding-day.” 

Lizzy Johnstone, a Fishwife, aged 12. 
“Hech ! hech ! it’s lamentable. 

Jean Carnie. “I’m saying, mairraige is quick 
wark, in some pairts — here there’s an awfu’ 
trouble to get a man.” 

A young Fishwife. “Ay, is there.” 

Omnes. “Haw! haw! haw!” (The fishwife 
hides.) 

Christie. “Fill your taupsels, lads and 
lasses, and awa to Veeneece.” 

Sandy Liston {sturdily). “I’ll no gang to 
sea this day.” 

Christie. “Noo, we are in the hall o’ judg- 
ment. Here are set the judges, awfu’ to be- 
hold; there, on his throne, presides the Juke.” 

Flucker. “She’s awa to her Ennglish.” 

Lizzy Johnstone. “Did we come to Veen- 
eece to speak Scoetch, ye useless fule?” 

146 


The Rival Picnics. 


Christie. “Here, pale and hopeless, but re- 
signed, stands the broken mairchant, Antonio ; 
there, wi’ scales and knives, and revenge in 
his murderin , eye, stands the crewel Jew, Shy- 
lock” 

“Awed,” muttered Sandy, considerately, 
“I’ll no mak a disturbance on a wedding-day.” 

Christie . “They wait for Bell — I dinna 
mind his name — a laerned lawyer, ony way; 
he’s sick, but sends ane mair laerned still, 
and, when this ane comes, he looks not older 
nor wiser than mysel.” 

Fluckcr. “No possible !” 

Christie. “Ye needna be sae sarcy, Flucker, 
for when he comes to his wark he soon lets 
’em ken — runs his een like lightning ower 
the boend. ‘This bond’s forfeit. Is Antonio 
not able to dischairge the -money?’ ‘Ay!’ cries 
Bassanio, ‘here’s the sum thrice told.’ Says 
the young judge, in a bit whisper to Shylock, 
‘Shylock, there’s thrice thy money offered 
thee. Be mairceful,’ says he, out loud. ‘Wha’ll 
mak me?’ says the Jew body. ‘Male ye!’ says 
he; ‘maircy is no a thing ye strain through 
a sieve, mon ; it droppeth like the gentle dew 
fra’ heaven upon the place beneath ; it blesses 
him that gives and him that taks ; it becomes 
the king better than his throne, and airthly 
power is maist like God’s power when maircy 
seasons justice.’ ” 

Robert Haw , Fisherman. “Dinna speak like 
that to me, onybody, or I shall gie ye my 
147 


Charles Reade. 

boat, and fling my nets until it, as ye sail 
awa wi’ her.” 

Jean Carnie. “Sae he let the puir deevil go. 
Oh ! ye ken wha could stand up against siccan 
a shower o’ Ennglish as thaat.” 

Christie. “He just said, ‘My deeds upon my 
heed. I claim the law/ says he; ‘there is no 
power in the tongue o’ man to alter me. I 
stay here on my boend/ ” 

Sandy Liston. “I hae sat quiet ! — quiet I 
hae sat against my will, no to disturb Jamie 
Drysel’s weddin’ ; but ye carry the game ower 
far, Shylock, my lad. I’ll just give yon bluidy- 
minded urang-utang a hidin’, and bring Tony 
off, the gude, puir-spirited creature; and him 
an’ me, an’ Bassanee, an’ Porshee, we'll hae 
a gill thegither.” 

He rose, and was instantly seized by two 
of the company, from whom he burst furious- 
ly, after a struggle, and the next moment was 
heard to fall clean from the top to the bottom 
of the stairs. Flucker and Jean ran out; the 
rest appealed against the interruption. 

Christie. “Hech ! he’s killed ; Sandy Liston 
’s brake his neck.” 

“What aboot it, lassy?” said a young fisher- 
man; “it’s Antonio I’m feared for; save him, 
lassy, if poessible; but I doot ye’ll no get him 
clear o’ yon deevelich heathen. 

“Auld Sandy’s cheap saired,” added he, with 
all the indifference a human tone could con- 
vey. 


148 


The Rival Picnics. 


“O Cursty,” said Lizzy Johnstone, with a 
peevish accent, “dinna break the bonny yarn 
for naething.” 

Flucker (returning) . He’s a’ reicht.” 

Christie. “Is he no dead?” 

Flucker . “Him deed? he’s sober — that’s 
the change I see.” 

Christie. “Can he speak? I’m asking ye.” 

Flucker . “Yes, he can speak.” 

Christie. “What does he say, puir body?” 

Flucker. “He sat up, an’ sought a gill fra’ 
the wife — puir body !” 

Christie. “Hech, hech ! he was my pupil in 
the airt o’ sobriety ! — aweel, the young judge 
rises to deliver the sentence of the coort. Si- 
lence !” thundered Christie. A lad and a lass 
that were slightly flirting were discounte- 
nanced. 

Christie. “A pund o’ that same mairchant’s 
flesh is thine ! the coort awards it, and the 
law does give it.” 

A young Fishwife . “There, I thoucht sae; 
he’s gaun to cut him, he’s gaun to cut him; 
I’ll no can bide.” (Exibat.) 

Christie. “There’s a fulish goloshen. 'Have 
by a doctor to stop the blood.’ — T see nae 
doctor in the boend,’ says the Jew body.” 

Flucker. “Bait your hook wi’ a boend, and 
ye shall catch yon carle’s saul, Satin, my lad.” 

Christie ( with dismal pathos). “O Flucker, 
dinna speak evil o’ deegneties — that’s maybe 
Ashing for yoursel’ the noo ! — 'An’ ye shall 
119 


Charles Reade. 


cut the flesh frae off his breest.’ — ‘A sentence,’ 
says Shylock, ‘come, prepare/ ” 

Christie made a dash cn Shylock , and the 
company trembled. 

Christie. “ ‘Bide a wee/ says the judge, 
‘this boend gies ye na a drap o’ bluid; the 
words expressly are, a pund o’ flesh !’ ” 

( A Dramatic Pause.) 

Jean Carnie ( drawing her breath). “That’s 
into your mutton, Shylock.” 

Christie ( with dismal pathos). “O Jean! 
yon s an awfu’ voolgar exprassion to come fra’ 
a woman’s mooth.” 

“Could ye no hae said, ‘intil his bacon’?” 
said Lizzy Johnstone, confirming the remon- 
strance. 

Christie. “Then tak your boend, an’ your 
pund o’ flesh, but in cutting o’ ’t, if thou dost 
shed one drop of Christian bluid, thou diest !” 

Jean Carnie. “Hech !” 

Christie. “Thy goods are by the laws of 
Veeneece con-fis-cate, confiscate!” 

Then, like an artful narrator, she began to 
wind up the story more rapidly. 

Sae Shylock got to be no sae saucy: ‘Pay 
the boend thrice,’ says he, ‘and let the puir 
deevil go.’ — ‘Here it’s,’ says Bassanio. — Na ! 
the young judge wadna let him. — ‘He has re- 
fused it in open coort ; no a bawbee for Shy- 
lock but just the forfeiture; an’ he daur na 
tak it,’ — ‘I’m awa,’ says he. ‘The deivil tak 
150 


The Rival Picnics. 


ye a’.’ — Na ! he wasna to win clear sae; ance 
they’d gotten the Jew on the hep, they worried 
him, like good Christians, that’s a fact. The 
judge fand a law that fitted him, for conspiring 
against the life of a citizen; an’ he behooved 
to give up hoose an’ lands, and be a Christian ; 
yon was a soor drap — he tarned no weel, puir 
auld villain, an’ scairtit; an’ the lawyers sent 
ane o’ their weary parchments till his hoose, 
and the puir auld heathen signed awa’ his 
siller, an’ Abraham, an’ Isaac, an’ Jacob ; on 
the heed o’ ’t. I pity him, an auld, auld man ; 
and his dochter had rin off wi’ a Christian 
lad — they ca’ her Jessica, and didn’t she steal 
his very diamond ring that his ain lass gied 
him when he was young, an’ maybe no sae 
hardhairted ?” 

Jean Carnie. “O the jaud! suppose he was 
a Jew, it was na her business to clean him 
oot.” 

A young Fishwife. “Aweel, it was only a 
Jew body, that’s my comfort.” 

Christie. “Ye speak as a Jew was na a 
man; has not a Jew eyes, if ye please?” 

Lizzy Johnstone. “Ay, has he ! — and the 
awiucst lang neb atween em.” 

Christie. “Has not a Jew affections, pas- 
sions, organs?” 

Jean. “Na ! Christie; thir lads comes fr’ 
Italy !” 

Christie. “If you prick him, does he not 
bleed? if you tickle him, does na he lauch?” 
151 


Charles Reade. 


A young Fishwife {pertly). “I never kittlet 
a Jew, for my part — sae I'll no can tell ye.” 

Christie. “If you poison him, does he not 
die? and if you wrang him,” {with fury) “shall 
he not revenge?” 

Lizzy Johnstone. “Oh ! but ye’re a fear- 
some lass.” 

Christie. “Wha’ll give me a sang for my 
bonny yarn?” 

Lord Ipsden, who had been an unobserved 
auditor of the latter part of the tale, here 
inquired whether she had brought her book. 

“What’n buk?” 

“Your music-book !” 

“Here’s my music-book,” said Jean, roughly 
tapping her head. 

“And here’s mines,” said Christie, bird-ly, 
touching her bosom. 

“Richard,” said she, thoughfully, “I wish 
ye may no hae been getting in voolgar com- 
pany ; div ye think we hae minds like rinning 
water ?” 

Flucker {avec malice). “And tongues like 
the mill-clack abune it? Because if ye think 
sae, captain — ye’re no far wrang !” 

Christie. “Na ! we hae na muckle gowd 
maybe; but our minds are gowden vessels.” 

Jean. “Aha ! lad.” 

Christie. “They are not saxpenny sieves, 
to let music an’ metre through, and leave us 
none the wiser or better. Dinna gang in low 
voolgar company, or you a lost laddy.” 

152 


The Rival Picnics. 


Ipsden. “ Vulgar, again ! everybody has a 
different sense for that word, I think. What 
is vulgar ?" 

Christie . “Voolgar folk sit on an chair, 
ane, twa, whiles three hours, eatin' an’ abune 
a’ drinkin', as still as hoegs, or gruntin' puir 
every-day clashes, goessip, rubbich ; when ye 
are aside them, ye might as weel be aside a 
cuddy; they canna gie ye a sang, they canna 
gie ye a story, they canna think ye a thoucht, 
to save their useless lives ; that's voolgar folk." 

She sings. “A caaller herrin' !" 

Jean. “A caaller herrin' !" 

Omnes. 

“Come buy my bonny caaller herrin’, 

Six a penny caaller from the sea,” etc. 

The music chimed in, and the moment the 
song was done, without pause, or anything to 
separate or chill the succession of the arts, 
the fiddles diverged with a gallant plunge into 
“The Dusty Miller." The dancers found their 
feet by an instinct as rapid, and a rattling 
reel shook the floor like thunder. Jean Carnie 
assumed the privilege of a bride, and seized 
his Lordship; Christie, who had a mind to 
dance with him, too, took Flucker captive, 
and these four were one reel ! There were 
seven others. 

The principle of reel dancing is articulation ; 
the foot strikes the ground for every accented 
153 


Charles Reade. 


note (and, by the by, it is their weakness of 
accent which makes all English reel and horn- 
pipe players such failures). 

And in the best steps of all, which it has 
in common with the hornpipe, such as the 
quick “heel and toe,” “the sailor’s fling,” and 
the “double shuffle,” the foot strikes the 
ground for every single note of the instru- 
ment. 

All good dancing is beautiful. 

But this articulate dancing, compared with 
the loose, lawless diffluence of motion that 
goes by that name, gives me (I must confess 
it) as much more pleasure as articulate sing- 
ing is superior to tunes played on the voice 
by a young lady: 

Or the clean playing of my mother to the 
piano-forte splashing of my daughter ; though 
the latter does attack the instrument as a 
washerwoman her soapsuds, and the former 
works like a lady. 

Or skating to sliding: 

Or English verse to dactyls in English : 

Or painting to daubing: 

Or preserved strawberries to strawberry 
j am. 

What says Goldsmith of the two styles? 

“They swam, sprawled, frisked, and lan- 
guished ; but Olivia’s foot was as pat to the 
music as its echo .” — Vicar of Wakefield. 

Newhaven dancing aims also at fun ; laugh- 
ter mingles with agility; grotesque, yet grace- 
154 


The Rival Picnics. 

ful gestures are flung in, and little inspiring 
cries flung out. 

His Lordship soon entered into the spirit 
of it. Deep in the mystery of the hornpipe, 
he danced one or two steps Jean and Christie 
had never seen, but their eyes were instantly 
on his feet, and they caught in a minute and 
executed these same steps. 

To see Christie Johnstone do the double - 
shuffle with her arms so saucily akimbo, and 
her quick elastic foot at an angle of forty-five, 
was a treat. 

The dance became inspiriting, inspiring, in- 
toxicating; and, when the fiddles at last left 
off, the feet went on another seven bars by 
the enthusiastic impulse. 

And so, alternately spinning yarns, singing 
songs, dancing, and making fun, and mingling 
something of heart and brain in all, these 
benighted creatures made themselves happy 
instead of peevish, and with a day of stout, 
vigorous, healthy pleasure, refreshed, indemni- 
fied and warmed themselves for many a day 
of toil. 

Such were the two picnics of Inch Coombe, 
and these rival cliques, agreeing in nothing 
else, would have agreed in this : each, if al- 
lowed (but we won’t allow either) to judge 
the other, would have pronounced the same 
verdict : — 

“I Is ne savent pas vivre ccs gens-la” 


155 






♦ 




































Fhe Forge in the Church. 



The Forge in the Church. 


PUT YOURSELF IN IIIS PLACE. CHAPTERS XI. 

AND XII. 

{Henry Little , an inventor and forger of 
great ability, has been persecuted in all man- 
ner of ways by the Trades-Unions . At last 
he has been forced to set up a secret forge 
in a deserted church. This church has the rep- 
utation of being haunted. Little has met Grace 
Carden, a young lady of zvealth and beauty, 
with whom he has fallen in love. Mr. Cov- 
entry, a man of the world, is also in love 
with her. Mr. Coventry and Grace have 
started out to make the ascent of a mountain 
in the vicinity.) 

They left George and the trap at the “Colley 
Dog,” and ascended the mountain. There were 
no serious difficulties on this side; but still 
there were little occasional asperities, that 
gave the lover an opportunity to offer his arm ; 
and Mr. Coventry threw a graceful devotion 
even into this slight act of homage. He 
wooed her with perfect moderation at first; 
it was not his business to alarm her at start- 
ing; he proceeded gradually; and, by the time 
159 


Charles Reade. 


they had reached the summit, he had felt his 
way, and had every reason to hope she would 
accept him. 

At the summit the remarkable beauty of the 
view threw her into raptures, and interrupted 
the more interesting topic on which he was 
bent. 

But the man of the world showed no im- 
patience (I don’t say he felt none) ; he an- 
swered all Grace’s questions, and told her 
what all the places were. 

But, by and by, the atmosphere thickened 
suddenly in that quarter, and he then told 
her gently he had something to show her on 
the other side of the knob. 

He conducted her to a shed the shepherds 
had erected, and seated her on a rude bench. 
“You must be a little tired,” he said. 

Then he showed her, in the valley, one of 
those delightful old red brick houses, with 
white stone facings. “That is Bollinghope.” 

She looked at it with polite interest. 

“Do you like it?” 

“Very much. It warms the landscape so.” 

He expected a more prosaic answer; but he 
took her cue. “I wish it was a great deal 
prettier than it is, and its owner a much better 
man ; richer — wiser ” 

“You are hard to please, Mr. Coventry.” 

“Miss Carden — Grace — may I call you 
Grace?” 

“It seems to me you have done it.” 

160 


The Forge in the Church. 

“But I had no right.” 

‘‘Then, of course, you will never do it again.” 

“I should be very unhappy if I thought that. 
Miss Carden, I think you know how dear you 
are to me, and have been ever since I first 
met you. I wish I had ten times more to 
offer you than I have. But I am only a poor 
gentleman, of good descent, but moderate 
means, as you see.” (Comedie! Bollinghope 
was the sort of house that generally goes with 
£5,000 a year at least.) 

“I don’t care about your means, Mr. Cov- 
entry,” said Grace, with a lofty smile. “It 
is your amiable character that I esteem.” 

“You forgive me for loving you; for hoping 
that you will let me lead you to my poor house 
there as my adored wife.” 

It had come, and, although she knew it was 
coming, yet her face was dyed with blushes. 

“I esteem you very much,” she faltered. 
“I thank you for the honor you do me ; but I — 
oh, pray, let me think what I am doing.” She 
covered her face with her hands, and her 
bosom panted visibly. 

Mr. Coventry loved her sincerely, and his 
own heart beat light at this moment. He 
augured well from her agitation ; but presently 
he saw something that puzzled him, and gave 
a man of his experience a qualm. 

A tear forced its way between her fingers ; 
another, and another soon followed. 

Coventry said to himself, “That’s some other 

161 


Charles Reade. 


man.” And he sighed heavily ; but even in this 
moment of true and strong feeling he was on 
his guard, and said nothing. 

It was his wisest course. She was left to 
herself, and an amazing piece of female logic 
came to Mr. Coventry’s aid. She found her- 
self crying, and got frightened at herself. 
That, which would have made a man 
pause, had just the opposite effect on her. 
She felt that no good could come to anybody 
of those wild and weak regrets that made her 
weep. She saw she had a weakness and a 
folly to cure herself of; and the cure was at 
hand. There was a magic in marriage ; a 
gentleman could, somehow, make a girl love 
him when once she had married him. Mr. 
Coventry should be enabled to make her love 
him; he should cure her of this trick of cry- 
ing; it would be the best thing for everybody 
— for him, for Jael, for Mr. Coventry, and 
even for herself. 

She dried her eyes, and said, in a low, 
tremulous voice : “Have you spoken to papa 
of — of this?” 

“No. I waited to be authorized by you. 
May I speak to him?” 

“Yes.” 

“May I tell him ” 

“Oh, I can’t tell you what to tell him. How 
dark it is getting. Please take me home.” An- 
other tear or two. 

Then, if Coventry had not loved her sin- 

162 


The Forge in the Church. 

cerely, and also been a man of the world, he 
would have lost his temper; and if he had lost 
his temper, he would have lost the lady, for 
she would have seized the first fair opportu- 
nity to quarrel. But no, he took her hand 
gently, and set himself to comfort her. He 
poured out his love to her, and promised her 
a life of wedded happiness. He drew so de- 
lightful a picture of their wedded life, and in 
a voice so winning that she began to be con- 
soled, and her tears ceased. 

“I believe you love me,” she murmured; 
“and I esteem you sincerely.’' 

Mr. Coventry drew a family ring from his 
pocket. It was a sapphire of uncommon 
beauty. 

“This was my mother’s,” said he. “Will 
you do me the honor to wear it, as a pledge?” 

But the actual fetter startled her, I think. 
She started up, and said : “Oh, please take me 
home first ! It is going to snow 

Call her slippery, if you don’t like her; call 
her unhappy and wavering, if you do like her. 

Mr. Coventry smiled now at this attempt to 
put off the inevitable, and complied at once. 

But, before they had gone a hundred yards, 
the snow did really fall, and so heavily that 
the air was darkened. 

“We had better go back to the shed till it 
is over,” said Mr. Coventry. 

“Do you think so?” said Grace doubtfully. 
“Well.” 


163 


Charles Reade. 


And they went back. 

But the snow did not abate, and the air got 
darker. So, by and by, Grace suggested that 
Mr. Coventry should run down the hill and 
send George up to her with an umbrella. 

“What, and leave you alone ?” said he. 

“Well, then, we had better go together.” 

They started together. 

By this time the whole ground was covered 
about three inches deep ; not enough to impede 
their progress; but it had the unfortunate ef- 
fect of effacing the distinct features of the 
ground; and, as the declining sun could no 
longer struggle successfully through the at- 
mosphere, which was half air, half snow, they 
were almost in darkness, and soon lost their 
way. They kept slanting unconsciously to 
the left, till they got over one of the forks of 
the mountain and into a ravine; they managed 
to get out of that, and continued to descend; 
for the great thing they had to do was to reach 
the valley, no matter where. 

But, after a long, laborious, and even dan- 
gerous descent, they found themselves begin- 
ning to ascend. Another mountain or hill 
barred their progress. Then they knew they 
must be all wrong, and they began to feel 
rather anxious. They wished they had stayed 
upon the hill. 

They consulted together, and agreed to go 
on for the present; it might be only a small 
rise in the ground. 


164 


The Forge in the Church. 

And so it proved. After awhile they found 
themselves descending again. 

But now the path was full of pitfalls, hid- 
den by the snow and the darkness. 

Mr. Coventry insisted on going first. 

In this order they moved cautiously on, 
often stumbling. 

Suddenly Mr. Coventry disappeared with a 
sudden plunge, and rolled down a ravine with 
a loud cry. 

Grace stood transfixed with terror. 

Then she called to him. 

There was no answer. 

She called again. 

A faint voice replied that he was not much 
hurt, and would try to get back to her. 

This, however, was impossible, and all he 
could do was to scramble along the bottom of 
the ravine. 

Grace kept on the high ground, and they 
called to each other every moment. They 
seemed to be a long way from each other; yet 
they were never sixty yards apart. At last 
the descent moderated, and Grace rejoined 
him. 

Then they kept in the hollow for some time, 
but at last found another acclivity to mount ; 
they toiled up it, laden with snow, yet perspir- 
ing profusely with the exertion of toiling up- 
hill through heather clogged with heavy snow. 

They reached the summit, and began to de- 
scend again. But now their hearts began to 
165 


Charles Reade. 


quake. Men had been lost on Cairnhope be- 
fore to-day, and never found alive; and they 
were lost on Cairnhope; buried in the sinu- 
osities of the mountain, and in a tremendous 
snowstorm. 

They wandered and staggered, sick at heart ; 
since each step might be for the worse. 

They wandered and staggered miserably; 
and the man began to sigh, and the woman to 
cry. 

At last they were so exhausted, they sat 
down in despair ; and, in a few minutes there 
were a couple of snow-heaps. 

Mr. Coventry was the first to see all the 
danger they ran by this course. 

“For God’s sake let us go on,” he said, “if 
we once get benumbed, we are lost. We must 
keep moving, till help comes to us.” 

Then they staggered and stumbled on again, 
till they both sank into a deep snowdrift. 

They extricated themselves, but oh, when 
they felt that deep cold snow all round them, it 
was a foretaste of the grave. 

The sun had set, it was bitterly cold, and 
still the enormous flakes fell, and doubled the 
darkness of the night. 

They staggered and stumbled on, not now 
with any hope of extricating themselves from 
the fatal mountain, but merely to keep the 
blood alive in their veins. And, when they 
were exhausted, they sat down and soon were 
heaps of snow. 


106 


The Forge in the Church. 

While they sat thus, side by side, thinking 
no more of love, or any other thing but this, 
should they ever see the sun rise, or sit by the 
fireside again ? suddenly they heard a sound in 
the air behind them, and in a moment, what 
seemed a pack of hounds in full cry, passed 
close over their heads. 

They uttered a loud cry. 

“We are saved !” cried Grace. “Mr. Raby 
is hunting us with dogs. That was the echo.” 

Coventry groaned. “What scent would lie ?” 
said he. “Those hounds were in the air; a 
hundred strong.” 

Neither spoke for a moment, and then it 
was Grace who broke the terrible silence. 

“The Gabriel hounds!” 

“The Gabriel hounds ; that run before ca- 
lamity ! Mr. Coventry, there’s nothing to be 
done now, but to make our peace with God. 
For you are a dead man, and I’m a dead wo- 
man. My poor papa ! poor Mr. Little !” 

She kneeled down on the snow, and prayed 
patiently, and prepared to deliver up her inno- 
cent soul to Him who gave it. 

Not so her companion. He writhed away 
from death. He groaned, he sighed, he cursed, 
he complained. What was Raby thinking of, 
to let them perish ? 

Presently he shouted out — “I’ll not die this 
dog’s death, I will not. I’ll save myself, and 
come back for you.” 

The girl prayed on, and never heeded him. 

167 


Charles Reade. 


But he was already on his feet, and set off 
to run ; and he actually did go blundering on 
for a furlong and more, and fell into a moun- 
tain stream, swollen by floods, which whirled 
him along with it, like a feather. It was not 
deep enough to drown him by submersion, but 
it rolled him over and over again, and knocked 
him against rocks and stones, and would in- 
fallibly have destroyed him, but that a sudden, 
sharp turn in the current drove him, at last, 
against a projecting tree, which he clutched, 
and drew himself out, with infinite difficulty. 
But, when he tried to walk, his limbs gave 
way, and he sank, fainting, on the ground, and 
the remorseless snow soon covered his pros- 
trate body. 

All this time, Grace Carden was kneeling 
on the snow, and was literally, a heap of snow. 
She was patient and composed now, and felt 
a gentle sleep stealing over her. 

That sleep would have been her death. 

But, all of a sudden something heavy 
touched her clothes and startled her, and two 
dark objects passed her. 

They were animals. 

In a moment it darted through her mind 
that animals are wiser than man in some 
things. She got up with difficulty, her limbs 
were stiffened, and followed them. 

The dark forms struggled on before. They 
knew the ground, and soon took her to the edge 
168 


The Forge in the Church. 

of that very stream into which Coventry had 
fallen. 

They all three went within a yard of Mr. 
Coventry, and still they pursued their way ; and 
Grace hoped they were making for some 
shelter. She now called aloud to Mr. Cov- 
entry, thinking he must be on before her. But 
he had not recovered his senses. 

Unfortunately, the cry startled the sheep, 
and they made a rush, and she could not keep 
up with them ; she toiled, she called, she prayed 
for strength; but they left her behind, and she 
could see their very forms no more. Then she 
cried out in agony, and still, with that power 
of self-excitement which her sex possess in 
an eminent degree, she struggled on and on, 
beyond her strength, till, at last, she fell 
down from sheer exhaustion, and the snow 
fell fast upon her body. 

But even as she lay, she heard a tinkling. 
She took it for sheep-bells and started up once 
more, and once more cried to Mr. Coventry; 
and this time he heard her, and shook off his 
deadly lethargy, and tried to hobble toward 
her voice. 

Meantime, Grace struggled toward the 
sound, and lo, a light was before her, a light 
gleaming red and dullish in the laden atmos- 
phere., With her remnant of life and strength, 
she dashed at it, and found a wall in her way. 
She got oyer it somehow, and saw the light 
1G9 


Charles Reade. 

quite close, and heard the ringing of steel on 
steel. 

She cried out for help, for she felt herself 
failing. She tottered along the wall of the 
building, searching for a door. She found the 
porch. She found the church door. But by 
this time she was quite spent; her senses 
reeled; her cry was a moan. 

She knocked once with her hands. She 
tried to knock again; but the door flew sud- 
denly open, and, in the vain endeavor to knock 
again, her helpless body, like a pillar of snow, 
fell forward; but Henry Little caught her di- 
rectly, and then she clutched him feebly, by 
mere instinct. 

He uttered a cry of love and alarm. She 
opened her filmy eyes, and stared at him. 
Her cold neck and white cheek rested on his 
bare and glowing arm. 

The moment he saw it was really Grace Car- 
den that had fallen inanimate into his arms, 
Henry Little uttered a loud cry of love and 
terror, and, putting his other sinewy arm under 
her, carried her swiftly off to his fires, uttering 
little moans of fear and pity as he went; he 
laid her down by the fire, and darted to the 
forge, and blew it to a white heat; and then 
darted back to her, and kissed her cold hands 
with pretty moans of love; and then blew up 
the other fires ; and then back to her, and pat- 
ted her hands, and kissed them with all his 
soul, and drew them to his bosom to warm 
170 


The Forge in the Church. 

them; and drew her head to his heart to warm 
her; and all with pretty moans of love, and 
fear, and pity; and the tears rained out of his 
eyes at sight of her helpless condition, and the 
tears fell upon her brow and her hands ; and all 
this vitality and love soon electrified her, she 
opened her eyes, and smiled faintly, but such 
a smile, and murmured : “It’s you/’ and closed 
her eyes again. 

Then he panted out: “Yes, it is I — a friend. 
I won’t hurt you — I won’t tell you how I love 
you any more — only live ! Don’t give way. 
You shall marry who you like. You shall 
never be thwarted, nor worried, nor made 
love to again ; only be brave and live ; don’t 
rob the world of the only angel that is in it. 
Have mercy, and live ! I’ll never ask more of 
you than that. Oh, how pale ! I am fright- 
ened. Cursed fires, have you no warmth in 
you?” And he was at the bellows again. 
And the next moment back to her, imploring 
her, and sighing over her, and saying the 
wildest, sweetest, drollest things, such as only 
those who love can say, in moments when 
hearts are bursting. 

How now? Her cheek that was so white is 
pink — pinker — red — scarlet. She is blushing. 

She had closed her eyes at Love’s cries. 
Perhaps she was not altogether unwilling to 
hear that divine music of the heart, so long as 
she was not bound to repel and remonstrate — 
being insensible. 


171 


Charles Reade. 


But now she speaks, faintly, but clearly: 
“Don’t be frightened. I promise not to die. 
Pray don’t cry so.” Then she put out her 
hand to him, and turned her head away, and 
cried herself, gently, but plenteously. 

Henry, kneeling by her, clasped the hand she 
lent him with both his, and drew it to his 
panting heart, in ecstasy. 

Grace’s cheeks were rosy red. 

They remained so a little while in silence. 

Henry’s heart was too full of beatitude to 
speak. He drew her a little nearer to the 
glowing fires, to revive her quite; but still 
kneeled by her, and clasped her hand to his 
heart. She felt it beat, and turned her blush- 
ing brow away, but made no resistance: she 
was too weak. 

“Plello !” cried a new voice, that jarred with 
the whole scene; and Mr. Coventry hobbled 
in sight. He gazed in utter amazement on 
the picture before him. 

Grace snatched her hand from Henry, and 
raised herself with a vigor that contrasted 
with her late weakness. “Oh, it is Mr. Cov- 
entry. How wicked of me to forget him for 
a moment! Thank Heaven you are alive. 
Where have you been?” 

“I fell into the mountain stream, and it rolled 
me down nearly to here. I think I must have 
fainted on the bank. I found myself lying 
covered with snow; it was your beloved voice 
that recalled me to life.” 

172 


The Forge in the Church. 

Henry turned yellow, and rose to his feet. 

Grace observed him, and replied : “Oh, Mr. 
Coventry, this is too high-flown. Let us both 
return thanks to the Almighty, who has pre- 
served us, and, in the next place, to Mr. Little ; 
we should both be dead but for him.” Then, 
before he could reply, she turned to Little, 
and said, beseechingly: “Mr. Coventry has 
been the companion of my danger.” 

“Oh, I’ll do the best I can for him,” said 
Henry, doggedly. “Draw nearer the fire, sir.” 
He then put some coal on the forge, and blew 
up an amazing fire; he also gave the hand- 
bellows to Mr. Coventry, and set him to blow 
at the small grates in the mausoleum. He 
then produced a pair of woolen stockings. 
“Now, Miss Carden,” said he, “just step in- 
to that pew, if you please, and make a dressing- 
room of it.” 

She demurred, faintly, but he insisted, and 
put her into the great pew, and shut her in. 

“And now, please take off your shoes and 
stockings, and hand them over the pew to me.” 

“Oh, Mr. Little; you are giving yourself so 
much trouble.” 

“Nonsense. Do what you are bid.” He said 
this a little roughly. 

“I’ll do whatever yon bid me,” said she, 
meekly; and instantly took off her dripping 
shoes, and stockings, and handed them over 
the pew. She received, in return, a nice warm 
pair of worsted stockings. 

173 


Charles Reade. 


“Put on these directly,” said he, “while I 
warm your shoes.”' 

He dashed all the wet he could out of the 
shoes, and, taking them to the forge, put hot 
cinders in; he shook the cinders up and down 
the shoes so quickly, they had not time to burn, 
but only warm and dry them. He advised 
Coventry to do the same, and said he was sorry 
he had only one pair of stockings to lend. And 
that was a lie ; for he was glad lie had only one 
pair to lend. When he had quite dried the 
shoes, he turned round, and found Grace was 
peeping over the pew, and looking intolerably 
lovely in the firelight. He kissed the shoes 
furtively, and gave them to her. She shook 
her head in a remonstrating way, but her eyes 
filled. 

He turned away, and, rousing all his gener- 
ous manhood, said: “Now you both must eat 
something, before you go.” He produced a 
Yorkshire pie, and some bread, and a bottle of 
wine. He gave Mr. Coventry a saucepan, and 
set him to heat the wine; then turned up his 
sleeves to the shoulder, blew his bellows, and, 
with his pincers, took a lath of steel and placed 
it in the white embers. “I have only got one 
knife, and you won’t like to eat with that. 
I must forge you one apiece.” 

Then Grace came out, and stood looking on, 
while he forged knives, like magic, before the 
eyes of his astonished guests. Her feet were 
now as warm as a toast, and her healthy young 
174 


The Forge in the Church. 

body could resist all the rest. She stood with 
her back to the nearest pew, and her hands 
against the pew too, and looked with amaze- 
ment, and dreamy complacency, at the strange 
scene before her, a scene well worthy of Sal- 
vator Rosa ; though, in fact, that painter never 
had the luck to hit on so variegated a sub- 
ject. 

Three broad bands of light shot from the 
fire, expanding in size, but weakening in in- 
tensity. These lights, and the candles at the 
west end, revealed, in a strange combination, 
the middle ages, the nineteenth century, and 
eternal nature. 

Nature first. Snow gleaming on the win- 
dows. Oh, it was cosy to see it gleam and 
sparkle, and to think: “Aha, you all but killed 
me ! now King Fire warms both thee and me.” 
Snowflakes, of enormous size, softly descend- 
ing, and each appearing a diamond brooch, as it 
passed through the channels of fiery light. 

The middle ages — Massive old arches, 
chipped and stained, a molding altar-piece, 
dog’s-eared (Henry had nailed it up again all 
but the top corner, and in it still faintly 
gleamed the Virgin’s golden crown). Pulpit, 
richly carved, but moldering; gaunt walls, 
streaked and stained by time. At the f west 
end, one saint — the last of many — lit by two 
candles, and glowing ruby red across the in- 
tervening gulf of blackness; on the nearest 
wall an inscription, that still told, in rusty 
175 


Charles Reade. 


•letters, how Giles de la Beche had charged 
his lands with six merks a year forever, to buy 
bread and white watered herrings, the same 
to be brought into Cairnhope Church every 
Sunday in Lent, and given to two poor men 
and four women; and the same on Good Fri- 
day with a penny dole, and, on that day, the 
clerk to toll the bell at three of the clock after 
noon, and read the lamentation of a sinner, 
and receive one groat. 

Ancient monuments, sculptures, with here 
an arm gone, and here a head, that yet looked 
half alive in the weird and partial light 

And between one of those mediaeval sculp- 
tures, and that moldering picture of the Vir- 
gin, stood a living horse, munching his corn; 
and in the foreground was a portable forge, a 
mausoleum turned into fires and hot plate, 
and a young man, type of his century, forg- 
ing table-knives amidst the wrecks of another 
age. 

When Grace had taken in the whole scene 
with wonder, her eye was absorbed by this 
one figure, a model of manly strength, and 
skill, and grace. How lightly he stepped; 
how easily his left arm blew the coals to a 
white heat, with blue flames rising from them. 
How deftly he drew out the white steel. With 
what tremendous force his first blows fell, 
and scattered hot steel around. Yet all that 
force was regulated to a hair — he beat, he 
molded, he never broke. Then came the light- 
176 


The Forge in the Church. 

er blows ; and not one left the steel as it found 
it. In less than a minute the bar was a blade. 
It was work incredibly unlike his method in 
carving; yet, at a glance, Grace saw it was 
also perfection, but in an opposite style. In 
carving, the hand of a countess; in forging, 
a blacksmith’s arm. 

She gazed with secret wonder and admira- 
tion; and the comparison was to the disad- 
vantage of Mr. Coventry; for he sat shiver- 
ing, and the other seemed all power. And wo- 
men adore power. 

When Little had forged the knives and 
forks, and two deep saucers, with magical 
celerity, he plunged them into water a minute, 
and they hissed ; he sawed off the rim of a 
pew, and fitted handles. 

Then he washed his face and hands, and 
made himself dry and glowing; let down his 
sleeves, and served them some Yorkshire pie, 
and bread., and salt, and stirred a little sugar 
into the wine, and poured it into the saucers. 

“Now eat a bit, both of you, before you 

go.” 

Mr. Coventry responded at once to the in- 
vitation. 

But Grace said, timidly: “Yes, if you will 
eat with us.” 

“No, no,” said he. “I’ve not been perished 
with snow, nor rolled in a river.” 

Grace hesitated still ; but Coventry attacked 
the pie directly. It was delicious. “By Jove, 

177 


Charles Reade. 


sir,” said he, “you are the prince of black- 
smiths.” 

“Blacksmiths !” said Grace, coloring high. 
But Little only smiled satirically. 

Grace, who was really faint with hunger, 
now ate a little, and then the host made her 
sip some wine. 

The food and wine did Mr. Coventry so 
much good, that he began to recover his su- 
periority, and expressed his obligations to 
Henry in a tone which was natural, and not 
meant to be offensive ; but yet it was so, 
under all the circumstances ; there was an 
underlying tone of condescension. It made 
Grace fear he would offer Henry his purse at 
leaving. 

Henry, himself, writhed under it; but said 
nothing. Grace, however, saw his ire, his 
mortification, and his jealousy in his face, 
and that irritated her ; but she did not choose 
to show either of the men how much it angered 
her. 

She was in a most trying situation, and all 
the woman’s wit and tact were keenly on their 
guard. 

What she did was this : she did not utter 
one word of remonstrance, but she addressed 
most of her remarks to Mr. Little ; and. though 
the remarks were nothing in themselves, she 
contrived to throw profound respect into 
them. Indeed, she went beyond respect. She 
178 


The Forge in the Church. 

took the tone of an inferior addressing- a su- 
perior. 

This was nicely calculated to soothe Henry, 
and also to make Coventry, who was a man 
of tact, change his own manner. 

Nor was it altogether without that effect. 
But then it annoyed Coventry, and made him 
wish to end it. 

After a while he said : “My dear Grace, it 
can’t be far from Raby Hall. I think you had 
better let me take you home at once.” 

Grace colored high, and bit -her lip. 

Henry was green with jealous anguish. 

“Are you quite recovered, yourself?” said 
Grace, demurely, to Mr. Coventry. 

“Quite ; thanks to this good fellow’s hos- 
pitality.” 

“Then zvould you mind going to Raby, and 
sending some people for me? I really feel 
hardly equal to fresh exertion just yet.” 

This proposal brought a flush of pleasure 
to Henry’s cheek, and mortified Mr. Coventry 
cruelly in his turn. 

“What, go and leave you here? Surely you 
cannot be serious.” 

“Oh, I don’t wish you to leave me. Only 
you seemed in a hurry.” 

Henry was miserable again. 

Coventry did not let well alone. He alluded 
delicately but tenderly to what had passed be- 
twen them, and said he could not bear her out 
of his sight until she was safe at Raby. The 


Charles Reade. 


words and the tone were those of a lover, and 
Henry was in agony ; thereupon Grace laughed 
it off. “Not bear me out of your sight !” said 
she. “Why, you ran away from me, and tum- 
bled into the river. Ha ! ha ! ha ! And” (very 
seriously) “we should both be in another world 
but for Mr. Little.” 

“You are very cruel,” said Mr. Coventry. 
“When you gave up in despair, I ran for help. 
You punish me for failure; punish me sav- 
agely.” 

“Yes, I was ungenerous,” said Grace. “For- 
give me.” But she said it rather coolly, and 
not with a very penitent air. 

She added an explanation more calculated 
to please Henry than him. “Your gallantry is 
always graceful, and it is charming in a draw- 
ing-room; but in this wild place, and just after 
escaping the grave, let us talk like sensible 
people. If you and I set out for Raby Hall 
alone, we shall lose our way again, and perish, 
to a certainty. But I think Mr. Little must 
know the way to Raby Hall.” 

“Oh, then,” said Coventry, catching at her 
idea, “perhaps Mr. Little would add to the 
great obligation, under which he has laid us 
both, by going to Raby Hall and sending as- 
sistance hither.” 

“I can’t do that,” said Henry, roughly. 

“And that is not at all what I was going to 
propose,” said Grace, quietly. “But perhaps 
you would be so good as to go with us to Raby 
180 


The Forge in the Church. 

Hall ? Then I should feel safe ; and I want 
Mr. Raby to thank you, for I feel how cold 
and unmeaning all I have said to you is ; I 
seem to have no words.” Her voice faltered, 
and her sweet eyes filled. 

“Miss Carden,” said the young man, gravely, 
“I can’t do that. Mr. *Raby is no friend of 
mine, and he is a bigoted old man, who would 
turn me out of this place if he knew. Come, 
now, when you talk about gratitude to me for 
not letting you be starved to death you make 
me blush. Is there a man in the world that 
wouldn’t? But this I do say; it would be 
rather hard if you two were to go away, and 
cut my throat in return ; and if you open your 
mouths ever so little, either of you, you will 
cut my throat. Why, ask yourselves, have I 
set up my workshop in such a place as this — 
by choice? It takes a stout heart to work 
here, I can tell you, and a stout heart to sleep 
here over dead bones.” 

“I see it all. The Trades Unions !” 

“That is it. So now there are only two 
ways. You must promise me never to breathe 
a word to any living soul, or I must giv£ up 
my livelihood, and leave the country.” 

“What, cannot you trust me? Oh, Mr. 
Little !” 

“No, no; it’s this gentleman. He is a 
stranger to me, you know ; and, you see, my life 
may be at stake, as well as my means.” 

“Mr. Coventry is a gentleman, and a man 

181 


Charles Reade. 


of honor. He is incapable of betraying you.” 

“I should hope so,” said Coventry. “I 
pledge you the word of a gentleman I will 
never let any human creature know that you 
are working here.” 

“Give me your hand on that if you please.” 

Coventry gave him his hand with warmth 
and evident sincerity. 

Young Little was reassured. “Come,” said 
he, “I feel I can trust you both. And, sir, 
Miss Carden will tell you what happened to me 
in Cheetham’s works ; and then you will under- 
stand what I risk upon your honor.” 

“I accept the responsibility ; and I thank you 
for giving me this opportunity to show you 
how deeply I feel indebted to you.” 

“That is square enough. Well, now my 
mind is at ease about that, Y 11 tell you what 
I’ll do; I won’t take you quite to Raby Hall; 
but I’ll take you so near to it, you can’t miss 
it; and then I’ll go back to my work.” 

He sighed deeply at the lonely prospect, and 
Grace heard him. 

“Come,” said he, almost violently, and led 
the .way out of the church. But he stayed be- 
hind to lock the door, and then joined them. 

They all three went together. Grace in the 
middle. 

There was now but little snow falling, and 
the air was not so thick; but it was most 
laborious walking, and soon Mr. Coventry, 
182 


The Forge in the Church. 

who was stiff and in pain, fell a little behind, 
and groaned as he hobbled on. 

Grace whispered to Henry : “Be generous. 
He has hurt himself so.” 

This made Henry groan in return. But he 
said nothing. He just turned back to Cov- 
entry — “You can’t get on without help, sir; 
lean on me.” 

The act was friendly, the tone surly. Cov- 
entry accepted the act, and noted the tone in 
his memory. 

When Grace had done this, she saw Henry 
misunderstood it, and she was sorry, and 
waited an opportunity to restore the balance; 
but ere one came a bell was heard in the air; 
the great alarm bell of Raby Hall. 

Then faint voices were heard of people call- 
ing to each other here and there in the dis- 
tance. 

“What is it?” asked Grace. 

Henry replied — “What should it be? The 
whole country is out after you, Mr. Raby has 
sense enough for that.” 

“Oh, I hope they will not see the light in 
the church, and find you out.” 

“You are very good to think of that. Ah! 
There’s a bonfire; and here comes a torch. I 
must go and quench my fires. Good-bye, Miss 
Carden. Good-evening, sir.” 

With this, he retired; but, as he went, he 
sighed. 

Grace said to Coventry — “Oh, I forgot to 

183 


Charles Reade. 

ask him a question ;” and ran after him. “Mr. 
Little !” 

He heard and came back to her. 

She was violently agitated. “I can’t leave 
you so,” she said. “Give me your hand.” 

He gave it to he*r. 

,“I mortified you; and you have saved me.” 
She took his hand, and, holding it gently in 
both her little palms, sobbed out — “Oh, think 
of something I can do, to show my gratitude, 
my esteem. Pray, pray, pray.” 

“Wait two years for me.” 

“Oh, not that. I don't mean that.” 

“That or nothing. In two years I’ll be as 
good a gentleman as he is. I’m not risking 
my life in that church, for nothing. If you 
have one grain of pity or esteem for me, wait 
two years.” 

“Incurable!” she murmured; but he was 
gone. 


184 


A Good Fight 



A Good Fight. 


THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. — CHAPTER 
XXXII. 

( The scene is laid about the middle of the 
fifteenth century. Gerard , a young painter 
from Holland , and Denys, a Burgundian sol- 
dier of middle age , are journeying together to 
Rome. On the way they meet with the ad- 
venture herein recounted.) 

This delay, however, somewhat put out 
Denys’ calculations, and evening surprised 
them ere they reached a little town he was 
making for, where was a famous hotel. How- 
ever, they fell in with a roadside auberge, 
and Denys, seeing a buxom girl at the door 
said : “This seems a decent inn,” and led the 
way into the kitchen. They ordered supper, 
to which no objection was raised, only the 
landlord requested them to pay for it before- 
hand. It was not an uncommon proposal in 
any part of the world. Still it was not uni- 
versal, and Denys was nettled, and dashed his 
hand somewhat ostentatiously into his purse, 
and pulled out a gold angel. “Count me the 
1S7 


Charles Reade. 


change, and speedily,” said he. “You tavern- 
keepers are more likely to rob me than I you.” 

While supper was preparing, Denys disap- 
peared, and was eventually found by Gerard 
in the yard, helping Manon, his plump but not 
bright decoy-duck, to draw water, and pouring 
extravagant compliments into her dullish ear. 
Gerard grunted and returned to table, but 
Denys did not come in for a good quarter of an 
hour. 

“Up-hill work at the end of a march,” said 
he, shrugging his shoulders. 

“What matters that to you?” said Gerard 
dryly. “The mad dog bites all the world.” 

“Exaggerator ! You know I bite but the 
fairer half. Well, here comes supper. That 
is better worth biting.” 

During supper the girl kept constantly com- 
ing in and out and looking point-blank at them, 
especially at Denys; and, at last in leaning 
over him to remove a dish, dropped a word 
in his ear, and he replied with a nod. 

As soon as supper was cleared away, Denys 
rose and strolled to the door, telling Gerard 
the sullen fair had relented, and given him a 
little rendezvous in the stable-vard. 

Gerard suggested that the cow house would 
have been a more appropriate locality. “I 
shall go to bed, then,” said he, a little crossly. 
“Where is the landlord? Out at this time of 
night? No matter. I know our room. Shall 
you be long, pray?” 


188 


A Good Fight. 

“Not I. I grudge leaving the fire and thee. 
But what can I do? There are two sorts of 
invitations a Burgundian never declines.” 

Denys found a figure seated by the well. It 
was Manon ; but instead of receiving him as he 
thought he had a right to expect, coming by in- 
vitation, all she did was to sob. He asked her 
what ailed her? She sobbed. Could he do 
anything for her? She sobbed. 

The good natured Denys, driven to his wits’ 
end, which was no great distance, proffered the 
custom of the country by way of consolation. 
She repulsed him roughly. “Is this a time for 
fooling?” said she, and sobbed. 

“You seem to think so,” said Denys, waxing 
wroth. But the next moment he added, ten- 
derly: “And I who could never bear to see 
beauty in distress!” 

“It is not for myself.” 

“Who, then? Your sweetheart?” 

“Oh, que nenni. My sweetheart is not on 
earth now; and to think I have not an ecu to 
buy masses for his soul ;” and in this shallow 
nature the grief seemed now to be all turned 
in another direction. 

“Come, come,” said Denys, “shalt have 
money to buy masses for thy dead lad ; I swear 
it. Meantime tell me why you weep.” 

“For you.” 

“For me? Art mad?” 

“No. I am not mad. ’Tis you that were 
mad to open your purse before him.” 

189 


Charles Reade. 


The mystery seemed to thicken, and Denys, 
wearied of stirring up the mud by questions, 
held his peace to see if it would not clear of it- 
self. Then the girl, finding herself no longer 
questioned, seemed to go through some in- 
ternal combat. At last she said, doggedly and 
aloud : “I will. The Virgin gave me courage ! 
What matters it if they kill me, since he is 
dead? Soldier, the landlord is out/’ 

“Oh, is he?” 

“What, do landlords leave their taverns at 
this time of night? Also, see what a tempest. 
We are sheltered here, but t’other side it blows 
a hurricane.” 

Denys said nothing. 

“He is gone to fetch the band.” 

“The band! What band?” 

“Those who will cut your throat and take 
your gold. Wretched man, to go and shake 
gold in an innkeeper’s face !” 

The blow came so unexpectedly, it staggered 
even Denys, accustomed as he was to sudden 
perils. He muttered a single word, but in it 
a volume. 

“Gerard !” 

“Gerard! What is that? Oh, ’tis thy 
comrade’s name, poor lad ! Get him out quick 
ere they come, and fly to the next town.” 

“And thou?” 

“They will kill me !” 

“That they shall not. Fly with us.” 

“ ’Twill avail me naught. One of the band 

190 


A Good Fight. 

will be sent to kill me. They are sworn to slay 
all who betray them.” 

“Til take thee to my native place, full thirty 
leagues from hence, and put thee under my 
own mother’s wing, ere they shall hurt a hair 
o’ thy head. But first Gerard. Stay thou here 
while I fetch him.” 

As he was darting off, the girl seized him 
convulsively, and with all the iron strength 
excitement lends to women. “Stay me not, 
for pity’s sake!” he cried. “ ’Tis life or 
death !” 

“ ’Sh ! — sh !” whispered the girl, shutting 
his mouth hard with her hand, and putting her 
pale lips close to him, and her eyes, that seemed 
to turn backward, straining toward some in- 
distinct sound. 

He listened. 

He heard footsteps, many footsteps, and no 
voices. She whispered in his ear: “They are 
come !” and trembled like a leaf. 

Denys felt it was so. Travelers in that 
number would never have come in dead silence. 

The feet now were at the very door. 

“How many?” said he, in a hollow whisper. 

“Hush !” and she put her mouth to his very 
ear. 

And who, that had seen this man and woman 
in that attitude would have guessed what freez- 
ing hearts were theirs, and what terrible whis- 
pers passed between them? 

“Seven.” 


191 


Charles Reade. 


“How armed?” 

“Sword and dagger ; and the giant with his 
ax. They call him the Abbot.” 

“And my comrade?” 

“Nothing can save him. Better lose one life 
than two. Fly !” 

Denys’ blood froze at this cynical advice. 
“Poor creature, you know not a soldier’s 
heart.” 

He put his head in his hands a moment, and 
a hundred thoughts of dangers baffled whirled 
through his brain. 

“Listen, girl. There is one chance for our 
lives, if thou wilt but be true to us. Run to the 
town, to the nearest tavern, and tell the first 
soldier there that a soldier here is sore beset, 
but armed, and his life to be saved if they will 
but run. Then to the bailiff. But first to the 
soldiers. Nay, not a word, but buss me, good 
lass, and fly ! Men’s lives hang on thy 
heels !” 

She kilted up her gown to run. He came 
round to the road with her, saw her cross the 
road cringing with fear, then glide away, then 
turn into an erect shadow, then melt away in 
the storm. 

And now he must get to Gerard. But how ? 
He had to run the gantlet of the whole band. 
He asked himself what was the worst thing 
they could do ? for he had learned in war that 
an enemy does, not what you hope he will do, 
but what you hope he will not do. “Attack 
192 


A Good Fight. 

me as I enter the kitchen ! Then I must not 
give them time !” 

Just as he drew near to the latch, a terrible 
thought crossed him. “Suppose they had al- 
ready dealt with Gerard. Why, then,” thought 
he, “naught is left but to kill, and be killed;” 
and he strung his bow, and walked rapidly in- 
to the kitchen. There were seven hideous 
faces seated round the fire, and the landlord 
pouring them out neat brandy, blood’s fore- 
runner of every age. 

“What! company?” cried Denys, gayly. 
“One minute, my lads, and I’ll be with you ;” 
and he snatched up a lighted candle off the 
table, opened the door that led to the stair- 
case, and went up it headlong. “What, Gerard ! 
whither hast thou skulked to?” - There was no 
answer. He hallooed louder: “Gerard, where 
art thou?” 

After a moment, in which Denys lived an 
hour in agony, a peevish half-inarticulate noise 
issued from the room at the head of the little 
stairs. Denys burst in, and there was Gerard 
asleep. 

“Thank God !” he said, in a choking voice, 
then began to sing loud, untuneful ditties. 
Gerard put his fingers into his ears, but pres- 
ently he saw in Denys’ face a horror that con- 
trasted strangely with this sudden merriment. 

“What ails thee?” said he, sitting up and 
staring. 

“Hush !” said Denys, and his hand spoke 

193 


Charles Reade. 

even more plainly than his lips. “Listen to 
me.” 

Denys then pointing significantly to the door, 
to show Gerard sharp ears were listening hard 
by, continued his song aloud but under cover 
of it threw in short muttered syllables. 

“(Our lives are in peril.) 

“(Thieves.) 

“(Thy doublet.) 

“(Thy sword.) 

“Aid. 

“Coming. 

“Put off time.” Then, aloud: 

“Well, now, wilt have t’other bottle? (Say 
nay.)” 

“No, not I.” 

“But I tell thee there are half a dozen jolly 
fellows. (Tired.)” 

“Ay, but I am too wearied,” said Gerard. 
“Go thou.” 

“Nay, nay !” Then he went to the door and 
called out cheerfully : “Landlord, the young 
milksop will not rise. Give those honest fel- 
lows t’other bottle. I will pay for it in the 
morning.” 

He heard a brutal and fierce chuckle. 

Having thus by observation made sure the 
kitchen door was shut, and the miscreants were 
not actually listening, he examined the cham- 
ber door closely; then quietly shut it, but did 
not bolt it, and went and inspected the win- 
dow. 


194 


A Good Fight. 

It was too small to get out of, and yet a 
thick bar of iron had been let in the stone 
to make it smaller; and, just as he made this 
chilling discovery, the outer door of the house 
was bolted with a loud clang. 

Denys groaned. “The beasts are in the 
shambles.” 

But would the thieves attack them while 
they were awake? Probably not. 

Not to throw away this their best chance, 
the poor souls now made a series of desperate 
efforts to converse, as of discussing ordinary 
matters, and by this means Gerard learned all 
that had passed, and that the girl was gone 
for aid. 

“Pray Heaven she may not lose heart by 
the way,” said Denys, sorrowfully. 

And Denys begged Gerard’s forgiveness for 
bringing him out of his way for this. Gerard 
forgave him. 

“I would fear them less, Gerard, but for one 
they call the Abbot. I picked him out at once. 
Taller than you, bigger than us both put to- 
gether. Fights with an ax. Gerard, a man 
to lead a herd of deer to battle. I shall kill 
that man to-night, or he will kill me. I think, 
somehow, ’tis he will kill me.” 

“Saints forbid! Shoot him at the door! 
What avails his strength against your wea- 
pon ?” 

“I shall pick him out; but, if it comes to 
hand-fighting, run swiftly under his guard, or 
195 


Charles Reade. 


you are a dead man. I tell thee neither of us 
may stand a blow of that ax. Thou never 
sawest such a body of a man.” 

Gerard was for bolting the door, but Denys, 
with a sigh, showed him that half the door- 
post turned outward on a hinge, and the great 
bolt was little more than a blind. “I have for- 
borne to bolt it,” said he, “that they may think 
us the less suspicious.” 

Near an hour rolled away thus. It seemed 
an age. Yet it was but a little hour; and the 
town was a league distant. And some of the 
voices in the kitchen became angry and im- 
patient. 

“They will not wait much longer,” said 
Denys, “and we have no chance at all unless 
we surprise them.” 

“I will do whate’er you bid,” said Gerard, 
meekly. 

There was a cupboard on the same side as 
the door, but between it and the window. It 
reached nearly to the ground, but not quite. 
Denys opened the cupboard door and placed 
Gerard on a chair behind it. “If they run for 
the bed, strike at the napes of their necks ! a 
sword-cut there always kills or disables.” He 
then arranged the bolsters and their shoes in 
the bed so as to deceive a person peeping from 
a distance, and drew the short curtains at the 
head. 

Meantime Gerard was on his knees. Denys 
looked round and saw him. 

196 


A Good Fight. 

“Ah!” said Denys, “above all, pray them to 
forgive me for bringing you into tnis gueta- 
pens !” 

And now they grasped hands and looked in 
each other’s eyes. Oh, such a look ! Denys’ 
hand was cold, and Gerard’s warm. 

They took their posts. 

Denys blew out the candle. 

“We must keep silence now.” 

But in the terrible tension of their nerves 
and very souls they found they could hear a 
whisper fainter than any man could catch at 
all outside that door. They could hear each 
other’s hearts thump at times. 

“Good news !” breathed Denys, listening at 
the door. “They are casting lots. Pray that 
it may be the Abbot.” 

“Yes. Why?” 

“If he comes alone I can make sure of him.” 

“Denys !” 

“Ay !” 

“I fear I shall go mad, if they do not come . 
soon.” 

“Shall I feign sleep? Shall I snore?” 

“Will that ?” 

“Perhaps.” 

“Do then, and God have mercy on us !” 

Denys snored at intervals. 

There was a scuffling of feet heard in the 
kitchen, and then all was still. 

Denys snored ?gain, then took up his posi- 
tion behind the door. 


197 


Charles Reade. 


But he, or they, who had drawn the lot, 
seemed determined to run no foolish risks. 
Nothing was attempted in a hurry. 

When they were almost starved with cold 
and waiting for the attack, the door on the 
stairs opened softly and closed again. Noth- 
ing more. 

There was another harrowing silence. 

Then a single light footstep on the stairs, 
and nothing more. 

Then a light crept under the door and noth- 
ing more. 

Presently there was a gentle scratching, not 
half so loud as a mouse’s and the false door- 
post opened by degrees and left a perpendicular 
space, through which the light streamed in. 
The door, had it been bolted, would now have 
hung by the bare tip of the bolt, which went 
into the real door-post, but, as it was, it swung 
gently open of itself. It opened inward, so 
Denys did not raise his cross-bow from the 
ground, but merely grasped his dagger. 

The candle was held up, and shaded from be- 
hind by a man’s hand. 

He was inspecting the beds from the thresh- 
old, satisfied that hio victims were both in 
bed. 

The man glided into the apartment. But at 
the first step something in the position of the 
cupboard and chair made him uneasy. He 
ventured no further, but put the candle on 
the floor and stooped to peer under the chair, 
198 


A Good Fight. 

but, as he stooped, an iron hand grasped his 
shoulder, and a dagger was driven so fiercely 
through his neck that the point came out at 
his gullet. There was a terrible hiccough, but 
no cry, and half a dozen silent strokes followed 
in swift succession, each a deathblow, and the 
assassin was laid noiselessly on the floor. 

Denys closed the door, bolted it gently, drew 
the post to, and, even while he was doing it, 
whispered Gerard to bring a chair. It was 
done. 

“Help me set him up.” 

“Dead?” 

“Parbleu !” 

“What for?” 

“Frighten them ! Gain time.” 

Even while saying this, Denys had whipped 
a piece of string round the dead man’s neck 
and tied him to the chair, and there the ghastly 
figure sat fronting the door. 

“Denys, I can do better. Saints forgive 
me !” 

“What? Be quick, then; we have not many 
moments.” 

And Denys got his cross-bow ready, and, 
tearing off his straw mattress, reared it be- 
fore him, and prepared to shoot the moment 
the door should open, for he had no hope any 
more would come singly, when they found the 
first did not return. 

While thus employed, Gerard was busy about 
the seated corpse, and, to his amazement, 
199 


Charles Reade. 


Denys say a luminous glow spreading rapidly 
over the white face. 

Gerard blew out the candle. And on this the 
corpse’s face shone still more like a glow- 
worm’s head. 

Denys shook in his shoes, and his teeth chat- 
tered. 

“What in Heaven’s name is this?” he whis- 
pered. 

“Hush ! ’tis but phosphorus. But ’twill 
serve.” 

“Away ! they will surprise thee.” 

In fact, uneasy mutterings were heard below, 
and at last a deep voice said, “What makes him 
so long? Is the drole rifling them?” 

It was their comrade they suspected, then, 
not the enemy. Soon a step came softly but 
rapidly up the stairs. The door was gently 
tried. 

When this resisted, which was clearly not 
expected, the sham post was very cautiously 
moved, and an eye, no doubt, peeped through 
the aperture; for there was a howl of dismay, 
and the man was heard to stumble back and 
burst into the kitchen, where a Babel of voices 
rose directly on his return. 

Gerard ran to the dead thief, and began to 
work on him again. 

“Back, madman !” whispered Denys. 

“Nay, nay. I know these ignorant brutes. 
They will not venture here awhile. I can 
make him ten times more fearful.” 

200 


A Good Fight. 

“At least close that opening. Let them not 
see you at your devilish work.” 

Gerard closed the sham post, and in half a 
minute his brush made the dead head a sight 
to strike any man with dismay. He put his 
art to a perhaps strange use, and one un- 
paralleled in the history of mankind. He il- 
luminated his dead enemy’s face to frighten 
his living foe. The staring eyeballs he made 
globes of fire ; the teeth he left white, for so 
they were more terrible by the contrast, but the 
palate and tongue were tipped with fire, and 
made one luring cavern of the red depths the 
chapfallen jaw revealed; and on the brow he 
wrote in burning letters, “LA MORT !” And, 
while he was doing it, the stout Denys was 
quaking, and fearing the vengeance of Heaven ; 
for one man’s courage is not another’s ; and the 
band of miscreants below were quarreling and 
disputing loudly, and now without disguise. 

The steps that led down to the kitchen were 
fifteen, but they were nearly perpendicular. 
There was, therefore, in point of fact, no dis- 
tance between the besiegers and besieged, and 
the latter now caught almost every word. At 
last one was heard to cry out, “I tell ye the 
devil has got him and branded him with hell- 
fire. I am more like to leave this cursed house 
than go again into a room that is full of 
fiends.” 

“Art drunk, or mad, or a coward?” said an- 
other. 


201 


Charles Reade. 


“Call me a coward, I’ll give thee my dagger’s 
point, and send thee where Pierre sits o’ fire 
forever !” 

“Come, no quarreling when work is afoot,” 
roared a tremendous diapason, “or I’ll brain 
ye both with my fist, and send ye where we 
shall all go soon or late !” 

“The Abbot!” whispered Denys, gravely. 

He felt the voice he had just heard could 
belong to no man but the colossus he had seen 
in passing through the kitchen. It made the 
place vibrate. The quarreling continued some 
time, and then there was a dead silence. 

“Look out, Gerard.” 

“Ay. What will they do next?” 

“We shall soon know.” 

“Shall I wait for you, or cut down the first 
that opens the door?” 

“Wait for me, lest we strike the same, and 
waste a blow. Alas ! we can’t afford that.” 

Dead silence. 

Sudden came into the room a thing that 
made them start and their hearts quiver. 

And what was it? A moonbeam. 

Even so can this machine, the body, by the 
soul’s action, be strung up to start and quiver. 
The sudden ray shot keen and pure into that 
shamble. 

Its calm, cold, silvery soul traversed the 
apartment in a stream of no great volume, 
for the window was narrow. 

After the first tremor, Gerard whispered, 

202 


A Good Fight. 

“Courage, Denys ! God’s eye is on us even 
here.” And he fell upon his knees, with his 
face turned toward the window. 

Ay, it was like a holy eye opening suddenly 
on human crime and human passions. Many 
a scene of blood and crime that pure, cold 
eye has rested on; but on few more ghastly 
than this, where two men, with a lighted 
corpse between them, waited panting to kill 
and be killed. Nor did the moonlight deaden 
that horrible corpse-light. If anything, it 
added to its ghastliness ; for the body sat at 
the edge of the moonbeam, which cut sharp 
across the shoulder and the ear, and seemed 
blue and ghastly and unnatural by the side 
of that lurid glow in which the face and eyes 
and teeth shone horribly. Rut Denys dared 
not look that way. 

The moon drew a broad stripe of light 
across the door, and on that his eyes were 
glued. Presently he whispered, “Gerard !” 

Gerard looked spd raised his sword. 

Acutely as they had listened, they had heard 
of late no sound on the stair. Yet there, on 
the door-post, at the edge of the stream of 
moonlight, were the tips of the fingers of a 
hand. 

The nails glistened. 

Presently they began to crawl and crawl 
down toward the bolt, but with infinite slow- 
ness and caution. In so doing they crept into 
the moonlight. The actual motion was im- 
203 


Charles Reade. 


perceptible, but slowly, slowly the fingers came 
out whiter and whiter, but the hand, between 
the main knuckles and the wrist, remained 
dark. Denys slowly raised his cross-bow. 

He leveled it. He took a long, steady aim. 

Gerard palpitated. At last the cross-bow 
twanged. The hand was instantly nailed, 
with a stern jar, to the quivering door-post. 
There was a scream of anguish. “Cut,” whis- 
pered Denys, eagerly, and Gerard’s uplifted 
sword descended and severed the wrist with 
two swift blows. A body sank down moan- 
ing outside. 

The hand remained inside, immovable, with 
blood trickling from it down the way. The 
fierce bolt, slightly barbed, had gone through 
it, and deep into the real door-post. 

“Two,” said Denys, with terrible cynicism. 

He strung his cross-bow, and knelt behind 
his cover again. 

“The next will be the Abbot.” 

The wounded man moved, and presently 
crawled down to his companions on the stairs, 
and the kitchen door was shut. 

There nothing was heard now but low mut- 
tering. The last incident had revealed the 
mortal character of the weapons used by the 
besieged. 

“I begin to think the Abbot’s stomach is not 
so great as his body,” said Denys. 

The words were scarcely out of his mouth, 
when the following events happened in a cou- 
204 


A Good Fight. 

pie of seconds. The kitchen door was opened 
roughly, a heavy but active man darted up the 
steps without any manner of disguise, and a 
single ponderous blow sent the door, not only 
off its hinges, but right across the room on to 
Deny’s fortification, which it struck so rudely 
as nearly to lay him flat. And in the doorway 
stood a colossus with a glittering ax. 

He saw the dead man with the moon’s blue 
light on half his face, and the red light on 
the other half, and inside his chapfallen jaws. 
He stared, his arms fell, his knees knocked 
together, and he crouched with horror. 

“LA MORT !” he cried, in tones of terror, 
and turned and fled. In which act Denys 
started up and shot him through both jaws. 
He sprang with one bound into the kitchen, 
and there leaned on his ax, spitting blood and 
teeth and curses. 

Denys strung his bow, and put his hand into 
his breast. 

He drew it out, dismayed. 

“My last bolt is gone !” he groaned. 

“But we have our swords, and you have 
slain the giant.” 

“No, Gerard,” said Denys, gravely, “I have 
not. And the worst is, I have wounded him. 
Fool ! to shoot at a retreating lion. He had 
never faced thy handiwork again, but for my 
meddling.” 

“Ha ! to your guard ! I hear them open 
the door.” 


205 


Charles Reade. 


Then Denys, depressed by the one error he 
had committed in all this fearful night, felt 
convinced that his last hour had come. He 
drew his sword, but like one doomed. But 
what is this? A red light flickers on the ceil- 
ing. Gerard flew to the window and looked 
out. There were men with torches, and 
breastplates gleaming red. “We are saved ! 
Armed men ! And he dashed his sword 
through the window, shouting, “Quick, quick ! 
we are sore pressed !” 

“Back !” yelled Denys. “They come ! Strike 
none but him !” 

That very moment the Abbot and two men 
with naked weapons rushed into the room. 
Even as they came the outer door was ham- 
mered fiercely, and the Abbot’s comrades, 
hearing it, and seeing the torch-light, turned 
and fled. Not so the terrible Abbot. Wild 
with rage and pain, he spurned his dead com- 
rade, chair and all, across the room, then, as 
the men faced him on each side with kindling 
eyeballs, he waved his tremendous ax like a 
feather right and left, and cleared a space, 
then lifted it to hew them both in pieces. 

His antagonists were inferior in strength, 
but not in swiftness and daring, and above all 
they had settled how to attack him. The mo- 
ment he reared his ax they flew at him like 
cats, and both together. If he struck a full 
blow with his weapon he would most likely 
kill one, but the other would certainly kill 
206 


A Good Fight. 

him. He saw this, and, intelligent as well as 
powerful, he thrust the handle fiercely in 
Denys’ face, and, turning, jabbed with the 
steel at Gerard. Denys went staggering back, 
covered with blood. Gerard had rushed in 
like lightning, and, just as the ax turned to 
descend on him, drove his sword so fiercely 
through the giant’s body that the very hilt 
sounded on his ribs like the blow of a pugilist, 
and Denys, staggering back to help his friend, 
saw a steel point come out of the Abbot behind. 

The stricken giant bellowed like a bull, 
dropped his ax, and clutching Gerard’s throat 
tremendously, shook him like a child. Then 
Denys, with a fierce snarl, drove his sword 
into the giant’s back. “Stand-firm, now !” and 
he pushed the cold steel through and through 
the giant and out at his breast. 

Thus horribly spitted on both sides, the 
Abbot gave a violent shudder, and his heels 
hammered the ground convulsively. His lips, 
fast turning blue, opened wide and deep, and 
he cried: “LA MORT !— LA MORT !— LA 
MORT !” the first time in a roar of despair, 
and then twice in a horror-stricken whisper 
never to be forgotten. 

Just then the street door was forced. 

Suddenly the Abbot’s arms whirled like 
windmills, and his huge body wrenched wildly 
and carried them to the doorway, twisting 
their wrists, and nearly throwing them off 
their legs. 


207 


Charles Reade. 


“He’ll win clear yet,” cried Denys. “Out 
steel, and in again !'’ 

They tore out their smoking swords, but 
ere they could stab again, the Abbot leaped 
full five feet high, and fell with a tremendous 
crash against the door below, carrying it away 
with him like a sheet of paper. 

The thieves, at the first alarm, had made 
for the back door, but, driven thence by a 
strong guard, ran back to the kitchen, just in 
time to see the lock forced out of the socket 
and half a dozen mailed archers burst in 
upon them. On these, in pure despair they 
drew their swords. 

But ere a blow was struck on either side, 
the staircase door behind them was battered 
into their midst with one ponderous blow, 
and with it the Abbot’s body came flying, 
hurled as they thought, by no mortal hand, 
and rolled on the floor spouting blood from 
back and bosom in two furious jets, and quiv- 
ered, but breathed no more. 

The thieves, smitten with dismay, fell on 
their knees directly, and the archers bound 
them, while above, the rescued ones still stood 
like statues rooted to the spot, their dripping 
swords extending in the red torch-light, ex- 
pecting their indomitable enemy to leap back 
on them as wonderfully as he had gone. 

The End. 


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